Venice Film Festival and the 2018 Oscars race officially begin
BBC 30th August, 2017 10:45:17
The Venice Film Festival jury faced the cameras on Wednesday
The 2018 Oscars may be six months away, but the starting gun has been fired on the film awards race with the opening of this year's Venice Film Festival.
Venice is the first launch pad for Oscar-worthy films - La La Land, Arrival, Spotlight, Birdman and Gravity all had their world premieres there.
This year's festival is opening with the premiere of Alexander Payne's Downsizing, starring Matt Damon.
Variety predicted that it should go on to be "a leading awards contender".
The film, in which Damon plays a man who literally gets shrunk, has been met with gushing reviews from most critics in the Italian city.
The "playful, spectacular, mischievous, and audacious" film is likely to be "a major draw at the box office", wrote Variety's Owen Gleiberman.
He described it as "a ticklish and resonant crowd-pleaser for grown-ups" and "a kind of live-action Pixar movie on acid".
Characters in the film go through a revolutionary scientific technique to get more living space, make their money go further and reduce their environmental footprints.
The Telegraph's Robbie Collin judged it to be "exhilaratingly odd", while The Guardian's Xan Brooks declared it a "miniature masterpiece" deserving five stars.
"No sooner I had it pegged as a jaunty black comedy than it starts folding in elements of dystopian sci-fi, or compassionate human drama," he wrote.
"A less polished director might have become lost and confused along the film's lengthy running-time. But Payne's handling is perfect.
"He never puts a foot wrong, rustling up a picture that is as bright as a button and as sharp as a tack."
The Hollywood Reporter's Todd McCarthy said Payne had never made a bad film - his others include Sideways and The Descendants - adding that the "moving and beautiful" Downsizing is arguably his best yet.
"Captivating, funny and possessed of a surprise-filled zig-zag structure that makes it impossible to anticipate where it's headed, this is a deeply humane film that...
feels both entirely of its moment and timeless," he wrote.
"It was a risky roll of the dice, but one that hits the creative jackpot."
The start of the Venice Film Festival marks the beginning of the film awards season - a season that will finish with the 2018 Oscar ceremony next March.
For film studios and independents, the next few weeks are crucial for launching movies for which they have high awards hopes. Venice kicks things off, followed by the Telluride Film Festival on Thursday and the Toronto International Film Festival next week.
Telluride has given audiences their first chance to see such best picture winners as Moonlight and The King's Speech, while winners of the People's Choice Award at Toronto (voted for by audiences) have included Oscar winners Slumdog Millionaire and 12 Years a Slave.
In recent years, only one best picture Oscar winner - 2011's The Artist - has not had its world premiere at one of these three festivals. And it's far from unusual for some films to play at two, or even all three events.
So what are the films to look out for after Venice?
At Toronto, there's The Current War starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Shannon as rival electricity pioneers Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse; and Stronger, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a man badly injured in the Boston Marathon bombing.
Telluride doesn't say which films it will be showing in advance. But titles that look set to be among this year's highlights include Battle of the Sexes, starring Emma Stone as Billie Jean King, and Darkest Hour, starring Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill.
Venice: Guillermo del Toro Wins Golden Lion for 'The Shape of Water'
Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images
Guillermo del Toro wins the Golden Lion
The Three Amigos have conquered Venice.Guillermo del Toro won the Golden Lion for The Shape of Water, a Cold War romantic fairy tale that the director made as a portrait of hope, as “an antidote to now.”
Accepting the award, which he already nicknamed "Sergio Leone," del Toro said, "If you remain pure and stay with your faith, whatever you have faith in, in my case it's monsters, eventually things go right." He dedicated the award to young Mexican and Latin American filmmakers who are continue to push the fantasy genre.
The film was universally well-received in Venice by critics. Sally Hawkins stars as a mute cleaning woman in this anti-Hollywood love story who falls in love with a sea monster being held captive by the U.S. government. Octavia Spencer, Michael Shannon, Doug Jones and Richard Jenkins also star.
Del Toro’s fellow “Three Amigos” have all struck Oscar gold after debuting big on the Lido, with Alfonso Cuaron Gravity (2014) taking home seven Academy Awards, (2013) and Alejandro Inarritu’s Birdman (2015) winning four. After his Venice premiere, Del Toro will hope to complete the circle as The Shape of Water continues on its awards path.
As the first female jury president in more than a decade, Annette Bening was in charge of doling out eight prizes among 21 films this year. Unlike in recent years, their choices lined up with audience favorites, and each announcement was met with loud cheers.
Israeli director Samuel Maoz won the Grand Jury Prize Silver Lion for his modern-day satire Foxtrot. The young French director Xavier Legrand was emotional after accepting the Silver Lion for best director, for his debut film Custody, after winning the Lion of the Future award. Martin McDonagh took the best screenplay award for his dark comedy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. And Warwick Thornton won the Special Jury Prize for the period Australian Western Sweet Country.
Charlotte Rampling won the best actress award for her lead role in Hannah, playing an abandoned woman in Andrea Pallaoro’s sophomore film on internalized grief. Kamel El Basha won best actor for the courtroom drama The Insult. And Charlie Plummer took the Marcello Mastroianni award for best young actor for his lauded performance in Lean on Pete.
The 74th Venice Film Festival saw its most star-studded edition in years, with films delving deep into political topics old and new. With the last four years seeing either a best picture or best director win at the Oscars, the studios came out in full force to kick off the awards season. But while the festival debuted a slew of Oscar contenders, none have yet emerged as surefire bets, as was seen in the past with films like Gravity and La La Land.
Fox Searchlight emerged as the winner among critics, with top reviewed films from Martin McDonagh with Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and Guillermo del Toro with The Shape of Water. Both films were praised across the board for incredible direction, storytelling and performances, and may be Venice's best shot to repeat history next March at the Academy Awards.
While Venice awards can sometimes translate into Oscar success, with Emma Stone picking up the best actress award for La La Land in Venice and later at the Academy Awards, this is not always the case. Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals, which won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize last year, was shut out from the Oscars, with only a supporting actor nod for Michael Shannon.
For the second year in a row, a female director won the top prize in Horizons, with this year going to Susanna Nicchiarelli and her biopic about the Velvet Underground singer: Nico, 1988.
Venice also had its first-ever VR jury this year, led by John Landis. With a separate exhibition space set up on an island far from the Lido, the VR works seemed to be more a part of the art Biennale this year than a part of the film festival. As directors continue to experiment with the medium, Venice has made clear they will bring the new technology front and center in future lineups.
Venice 74 Awards:
Golden Lion: The Shape of Water, Guillermo del Toro
Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize: Foxtrot, Samuel Maoz
Silver Lion Best Director: Custody, Xavier Legrand
Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Charlotte Rampling for Hannah, Andrea Pallaoro
Volpi Cup for Best Actor: Kamel El Basha for The Insult, Ziad Doueiri
Best Screenplay Award: Martin McDonagh, Three Billboards
Special Jury Prize: Sweet Country, Warwick Thornton
Marcello Mastroianni Award: Charlie Plummer for Lean on Pete, Andrew Haigh
Horizons Awards:
Best Film: Nico, 1988, Susanna Nicchiarelli
Best Director: No Date, No Signature, Vahid Jalilvand
Special Jury Prize: Caniba, Verena Paravel, Lucien Castaing-Taylor
Best Actress: Lyna Khoudri, The Blessed, Sofia Djama
Best Actor: Navid Mohammadzadeh for No Date, No Signature, Vahid Jalilvand
Best Screenplay: Dominique Welinski, Rene Ballesteros for Oblivion Verses, Alireza Khatami
Lion of the Future:
Lion of the Future Luigi De Laurentiis Award for a Debut Film: Custody, Xavier Legrand
Venice Classics:
Best Documentary on Cinema: The Prince and the Dybbuk, Elwira Niewiera, Piotr Rosolowski
Best Restored Film: Idi i smotri, Elem Klimov
Venice VR:
Best VR Film: Arden's Wake, Eugene YK Chung
Best VR Experience Award: La camera insabbiata, Laurie Anderson and Hsin-Chien Huang
Best VR Story Award: Bloodless, Gina Kim
Post time 12-9-2017 07:46 AMFrom the mobile phone|Show all posts
Kat Toronto yg jadi bualan of course Sally hawkins Dan Jessica Chastain. Margot Robbie pun dpt pujian sbg tonya Harding....cuma entah lah...I tgk sheols mcm belum sampai tahap tu lagi...lagipun dlm film I Tonya tu kak Allison janney yg lebih menonjol katanya....maybe mcm dah lock kot utk bersaing supp. actress
1. timothy chalament - call me by your name
2. gary oldman - the darkest hour
3. Joaquin Phoenix (“You Were Never Really Here”) - menang cannes baru2 ni
4. Daniel Day Lewis (“Phantom Thread”)
Post time 28-8-2017 02:13 AM
Post time 28-8-2017 09:28 AM
Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images
