Los Angeles – Directors Guild of America President Paris Barclay today announced the five nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2016.
Nominees for First-Time Feature Film Director Category Also Announced
Directors Guild of America President Paris Barclay (Photo via MadameNoir)
“These phenomenal filmmakers have captured our hearts and minds, breathing life into stories rarely told and revealing worlds rarely seen,” said Barclay. “What makes this recognition truly special is the knowledge that these five directors have made a lasting impression on their peers – directors and members of the director’s team who intimately understand the blood, sweat and tears necessary to create a feature film.”
The nominees for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2016 are (in alphabetical order):
Damien Chazelle La La Land(Lionsgate)
Mr. Chazelle’s Directorial Team:
Unit Production Manager: Michael Beugg
First Assistant Director: Peter Kohn
Second Assistant Director: Paula Case
Assistant Unit Production Manager: Bart Lipton
Second Second Assistant Director: Brett Robinson
Additional Second Assistant Director: Dodi Rubenstein
*This is Mr. Chazelle’s first DGA Award nomination.
Garth Davis Lion (The Weinstein Company)
Mr. Davis’s Directorial Team:
First Assistant Director: Chris Webb
First Assistant Director: Ananya Rane (India Unit)
Second Assistant Directors: Mark Ingram (Australia Unit), Sunny Tiku (India Unit), KP Singh (India Unit), Shaunak Kapur (India Unit)
*This is one of two DGA Award nominations this year for Mr. Davis. He is also nominated in the First-Time Feature Film category for Lion. He was previously nominated for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Commercials in 2009 for “Shadow Puppets,” U.S. Cellular.
Barry Jenkins Moonlight (A24)
Mr. Jenkins’s Directorial Team:
Unit Production Manager: Jennifer Radzikowski
*This is Mr. Jenkins’s first DGA Feature Film Award nomination.
Kenneth Lonergan Manchester by the Sea (Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions)
Mr. Lonergan’s Directorial Team:
Unit Production Manager: Declan Baldwin
First Assistant Director: Michael J. Moore
Second Assistant Director: David Blazina
Second Second Assistant Directors: Tim LaDue, Scooter Perrotta
*This is Mr. Lonergan’s first DGA Award nomination.
Denis Villeneuve Arrival (Paramount Pictures)
Mr. Villeneuve’s Directorial Team:
Unit Production Manager: Stan Wlodkowski
First Assistant Director: Donald L. Sparks
Second Assistant Director: Brigitte Goulet
Second Second Assistant Director: Karine P. Labelle
*This is Mr. Villeneuve’s first DGA Award nomination.
First-Time Feature Director Award
In addition, Mr. Barclay announced the five nominees for a new category, which debuted last year, recognizing the achievement of first-time feature film directors. First announced by Steven Spielberg at the 2015 DGA Awards, the Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film Director was created to showcase up-and-coming feature film talent.
“They say that ‘the only thing that stays the same is change,’ and that’s especially true when it comes to the art of filmmaking when driven by fresh viewpoints and new methods,” said Barclay. “The future of film is dependent on newly blazed trails and creative leaps of faith which is what we’re honoring with our first-time feature film director award. Congratulations to these five emerging filmmakers who have created projects that are as bold as they are innovative.”
The nominees for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement of a First-Time Feature Film Director for 2016 are (in alphabetical order):
Garth Davis Lion (The Weinstein Company)
Kelly Fremon Craig The Edge of Seventeen (STX Entertainment)
Tim Miller Deadpool (Twentieth Century Fox)
Nate Parker Birth of a Nation (Fox Searchlight Pictures)
Dan Trachtenberg 10 Cloverfield Lane (Paramount Pictures)
*Eligible directors for this award must have released his or her first feature-length film theatrically in Los Angeles or New York in 2016. Foreign films are eligible and the director does not need to be a DGA member.
The nominees in categories honoring outstanding directorial achievement in television, commercials and documentary for 2016 were announced on January 11, 2017. Click here to see that post.
The winners in all categories will be announced at the 69th Annual DGA Awards on Saturday, February 4, 2017 at the Beverly Hilton Hotel.
BMW is the Exclusive Automotive Sponsor of the 69th Annual DGA Awards.
Fourteen Films, including nine full-length fiction and documentary films, have been invited for the Perspektive Deutsches Kino in 2017.
Strong fiction films by millennials characterize this year’s selection. The directors, who are mostly in their early 30s and were coming of age around the turn of the millennium, were shaped and socialized by this period. With them we take a look back into childhood and adolescence. We see kids affected by their parents’ separation, and encounter endless parties and drugs. We accompany the protagonists on their search for personal freedom and stability.
The fiction film Millennials (dir: Jana Bürgelin, prod: Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg) uniquely exemplifies this generation. It is a documentary-style big city tale that follows the two protagonists, Anne Zohra Berrached and Leonel Dietsche, on their “éducation sentimentale” around Berlin. Leo is a photographer and would finally like some recognition for his photos. Anne is a successful film director and wants a child, but since she has no partner, she has, in wise foresight, frozen a few of her eggs.
In the fiction film Die Tochter (Dark Blue Girl, prod: Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg) director Mascha Schilinski approaches in an unusual way the problems children have after their parents split up. How must they redefine their positions and attitudes towards their separated parents when it comes to closeness and distance? Seven-year-old Luca (Helena Zengel) – in her desire to remain the only woman in her father’s life and, at the same time, the link between her parents – becomes a master manipulator.
Director Adrian Goiginger, who also studied at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, took a year off and during this time found production partners for his fiction film Die beste aller Welten (The Best Of All Worlds) in Lailaps Pictures in Munich and RitzlFilm in Austria. In a love story of a different kind, he re-examines his childhood by following seven-year-old Adrian (Jeremy Miliker) into the extremely exciting and adventurous world of his heroine-addicted mother.
In the film Zwischen den Jahren (End of the Season, prod: Radical Movies Production, Cologne) by Lars Henning, the world of Becker (Peter Kurth), the film’s protagonist, is very limited. After having served fifteen years in jail, he just wants to lead a quiet life in self-imposed solitude. But then the man whose life he destroyed eighteen years earlier returns to haunt him. It is Lars Henning’s second full-length fiction film and again he has reversed the victim-offender constellation conventional for this genre.
For the first time ever the Perspektive Deutsches Kino will show a film from the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (HFBK). The film Final Stage by Nicolaas Schmidt stands out for the filmic balancing act it conducts between documentary observation and subtle staging. Gabi, produced at the Filmuniversität Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, will open the Perspektive 2017 together with Back for Good (see post from December 21, 2016). According to director Michael Fetter Nathansky, it is a cinematic attempt to find expression for what has so often been said but has still been unable to change anything.
Christian von Brockhausen and Timo Großpietsch’s Könige der Welt (We were kings) about the music band “PICTURES” completes the programme. First known as “Union Youth”, the band came together at the turn of the millennium. With their mix of grunge and alternative they quickly became the German “Nirvana”. The film revisits a drug-filled past and accompanies their new start.
On February 19, 2017 – Berlinale Publikumstag – the Perspektive will screen the winners of the Max Ophüls Prize 2017 for best fiction feature and the First Steps Award 2016 for best documentary (Raving Iran, dir: Susanne Regina Meures).
Film list:
Die beste aller Welten (The Best Of All Worlds)
By Adrian Goiginger
With Verena Altenberger, Jeremy Miliker, Lukas Miko, Michael Pink
Feature film
World premiere
Final Stage
By Nicolaas Schmidt
With Aaron Hilmer, Fynn Grossmann
Medium long feature film
World premiere
Gabi
By Michael Fetter Nathansky
With Gisa Flake, Florian Kroop, Britta Steffenhagen, Martin Neuhaus
Medium long feature film
World premiere
Könige der Welt (We were kings)
By Christian von Brockhausen, Timo Großpietsch
Documentary film
World premiere
Millennials
By Jana Bürgelin
With Anne Zohra Berrached, Leonel Dietsche, Jan Koslowski, Anna Herrmann
Feature film
World premiere
Die Tochter (Dark Blue Girl)
By Mascha Schilinski
With Helena Zengel, Karsten Antonio Mielke, Artemis Chalkidou
Feature film
World premiere
Zwischen den Jahren (End of the Season)
By Lars Henning
With Peter Kurth, Karl Markovics, Catrin Striebeck, Leonardo Nigro
Feature film
World premiere
Films announced so far:
Back for Good
By Mia Spengler
With Kim Riedle, Juliane Köhler, Leonie Wesselow
Feature film
World premiere
Eisenkopf (Ironhead)
By Tian Dong
Documentary film
World premiere
Kontener (Container)
By Sebastian Lang
With Joanna Drozda, Anka Graczyk
Medium-long feature film
World premiere
Mikel
By Cavo Kernich
With Jonathan Aikins
Medium-long feature film
World premiere
Selbstkritik eines bürgerlichen Hundes (Self-criticism of a Bourgeois Dog)
By Julian Radlmaier
With Julian Radlmaier, Deragh Campbell, Beniamin Forti, Kyung-Taek Lie
Feature film
German premiere
Tara
By Felicitas Sonvilla
With Sasha Davydova, Leo van Kann, Lena Lauzemis
Medium-long feature film
World premiere
Ein Weg (Paths)
By Chris Miera
With Mike Hoffmann, Mathis Reinhardt
Feature film
World premiere
AFI FEST alums Mike Ott and Nathan Silver collaborate on a film that follows an actor, Arthur Martinez, as he hires two indie filmmakers (Ott and Silver playing themselves) to make a film with him as the star. Once on set, the filmmakers decide to scrap the movie that Arthur had planned to instead explore the actor’s real life. As Arthur becomes aware that the film has gotten away from him, his actions and motivations become unpredictable, forcing the filmmakers to question whether what Arthur does on set is real or just a performance. In their first collaboration together, Ott and Silver go to great lengths to merge fiction and nonfiction, resulting in an enjoyable experiment that blurs the lines between documentary and narrative.
AFI spoke to the directors about the film, which screens as part of AFI FEST’s American Independents section.
AFI: This film has an improvised feel, as your two lead actors play characters that share their real names. Did you work from a script or outline?
Nate Silver: We worked from a two-page outline. We drew a lot from Arthur Martinez’s life and Denver in general. We recreated many events and incidents and pulled in a lot of people we stumbled on during pre-production in Denver, and used these elements to dictate what we would shoot.
AFI: How did you juggle directing and acting in the film?
Mike Ott: The way we structured the film was key to getting inside Arthur’s head. We needed to insert ourselves into the movie in some aspect, so it wasn’t a matter of being difficult. It was frustrating, but that frustration made it easy to play frustrated directors.
AFI: Part of the fun of watching this film is trying to figure out what is documentary and what is narrative. How did you approach this as filmmakers?
MO: We knew that it would be a puzzle before the shoot, but how to structure the puzzle, we didn’t know. We didn’t figure this out until the edit. We knew we wanted multiple layers of fiction and documentary elements in the mix, but just what we would do with these layers, we had to deal with in post.
NS: Maybe it’s just that I have a short-term memory, but the interactions you see between us and the actors on screen probably give you an idea of what went down. I no longer remember what’s true or false about the movie.
Free tickets for ACTOR MARTINEZ will be available on AFI.com beginning November 1.
Lately, women directors in Kollywood are making it big. In a male-chauvinistic industry such as Kollywood, women directors have never ceased to amaze the audience with a solid content. While filmmakers like Reema Kagti, Zoya Akhtar, Gauri Shinde and Kiran Rao have carved a niche for themselves in Bollywood, women taking over the reins of direction is still a norm in Tamil cinema. However, we too have some maverick female filmmakers who left an imperishable mark among the audience. Despite being a terrific actor, Suhasini Mani Ratnam is a great screenwriter. Suhasini made her directorial debut with Indira, which is probably the most underrated film and was a box-office disaster upon release. However, it received a cult status for its modern theme. The protagonist of the film is a woman who single-handedly strives to overcome the caste system in her village, and one has to give it to Suhasini Maniratnam for having carved an innocent but an impactful character in Indira. Apart from Indira, Suhasini has worked in Mani Ratnam’s Raavanan/ Raavan (2010). According to Mani Ratnam, it was Suhasini who wrote half of the former’s anthology political drama Aayutha Ezhuthu/ Yuva (2004).
Bankrolled by ace-filmmaker Gautham Menon, Veppam narrates a set of events from the slum areas of Chennai, showcasing characters and their struggles. Veppam, on many levels, is an unusual subject which one wouldn’t expect from a woman, especially in this genre (gritty thriller). Veppam had everything to hold the audience’s eyes- romance, drama and violence. However, the film failed to create the impact that of Selvaraghavan’s Pudhupettai (2006) or Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s Aaranya Kaandam (2010). Be it the screenplay or the dialogues, Anjana Ali Khan has to be credited for the amount of detailing that went unnoticed.
Lately, women directors in Kollywood are making it big. In a male-chauvinistic industry such as Kollywood, women directors have never ceased to amaze the audience with a solid content. While filmmakers like Reema Kagti, Zoya Akhtar, Gauri Shinde and Kiran Rao have carved a niche for themselves in Bollywood, women taking over the reins of direction is still a norm in Tamil cinema. However, we too have some maverick female filmmakers who left an imperishable mark among the audience.
Suhasini Mani Ratnam’s Indira (1995)
Despite being a terrific actor, Suhasini Mani Ratnam is a great screenwriter. Suhasini made her directorial debut with Indira, which is probably the most underrated film and was a box-office disaster upon release. However, it received a cult status for its modern theme. The protagonist of the film is a woman who single-handedly strives to overcome the caste system in her village, and one has to give it to Suhasini Maniratnam for having carved an innocent but an impactful character in Indira. Apart from Indira, Suhasini has worked in Mani Ratnam’s Raavanan/ Raavan (2010). According to Mani Ratnam, it was Suhasini who wrote half of the former’s anthology political drama Aayutha Ezhuthu/ Yuva (2004).
Anjana Ali Khan’s Veppam (2011)
Bankrolled by ace-filmmaker Gautham Menon, Veppam narrates a set of events from the slum areas of Chennai, showcasing characters and their struggles. Veppam, on many levels, is an unusual subject which one wouldn’t expect from a woman, especially in this genre (gritty thriller). Veppam had everything to hold the audience’s eyes- romance, drama and violence. However, the film failed to create the impact that of Selvaraghavan’s Pudhupettai (2006) or Thiagarajan Kumararaja’s Aaranya Kaandam (2010). Be it the screenplay or the dialogues, Anjana Ali Khan has to be credited for the amount of detailing that went unnoticed.
Aishwaryaa’s 3 (2011) and Soundarya’s Kochadaiiyaan (2014)
After working as an erstwhile assistant director to Selvaraghavan, Aishwaryaa R ventured into direction. Her first feature film 3, which had her husband Dhanush playing the lead role, opened to mixed reviews from the audience. However, the song ‘Why This Kolaveri Di’ was a rage upon release.
Lately, women directors in Kollywood are making it big. In a male-chauvinistic industry such as Kollywood, women directors have never ceased to amaze the audience with a solid content. While filmmakers like Reema Kagti, Zoya Akhtar, Gauri Shinde and Kiran Rao have carved a niche for themselves in Bollywood, women taking over the reins of direction is still a norm in Tamil cinema. However, we too have some maverick female filmmakers who left an imperishable mark among the audience.
Soundarya too didn’t have a rock solid debut. Despite working with superstar Rajinikanth in Kochadaiiyaan, the film failed to create the Rajini magic at the box office. Now, both Aishwaryaa and Soundarya are working on their respective feature films.
Lakshmy Ramakrishnan’s Aarohanam (2012) and Ammani (2016)
After making her acting debut in the Malayalam industry, Lakshmy Ramakrishnan proved her mettle in director Mysskin’s Yudham Sei (2011). Aarohanam was her first directorial venture which tells the story of Nirmala, the breadwinner of the family who goes missing just two days before her daughter’s wedding. Aarohanam was widely lauded for the director’s treatment of the characters and Viji Chandrasekhar’s performance. Lakshmy Ramakrishnan’s recent film Ammani too opened to rave reviews from the critics.
Sudha Kongara, who associate director for seven years with Mani Ratnam, made her directorial debut with the Tamil film Drohi (2010). However, it was R Madhavan’s Irudhi Suttru which gave Sudha the much-needed breakthrough in the industry. Irudhi Suttru tells the story of Prabhu Selvaraj (Madhavan), a boxer, is ignored by the boxing association. He tries to accomplish his dream by training Madhi, a fish-seller and an amateur fighter. As the film also marked the return of Madhavan, Irudhi Suttru was an instant hit and the film has now been selected to premiere at the Tokyo International Film Festival.
Also, the list becomes incomplete without Gayathri, whose dark comedy Va Quarter Cutting (2010) has earned a cult among the fans of neo-noir genre.
If you are by any chance a film buff you’d be aware of your favourite time of the year – the 18th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. You’d also no doubt be really confused about what films to watch considering the sheer volume of amazing films put together by the lovely people of Jio MAMI.
Fret not. Listed below is a handy guide to make note of 15 films you should absolutely, under no circumstance, miss at the festival.
Under The Shadow
Director: Babak Anvari Country: Iran
By far the most exciting film at the fest, Babak Anvari’s film contains a mysterious spooky entitypestering a mother and her daughter during the fag end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988. The film has been gathering some serious buzz ever since it premiered in Sundance back in January. It’s also UIK’s official entry to the Oscars — which bodes well for fans of intelligent horror cinema.
The Lure
Director: Agnieszka Smoczynska Country: Poland
Set in a Warsaw nightclub and full of weird lurid visuals, The Lure chronicles two mermaid sisters who arrive on land to explore the ‘human’ side of the world, and clash when they fall for the same human. Things get stranger when we discover the mermaids also have vampiric tendencies. The film created quite a buzz in Sundance where it won a Jury Prize.
Personal Shopper
Director: Oliver Assayas Country: France
It seems like this year’s MAMI has turned into the Fantastic Fest (what could possibly be better than that) because this is the third acclaimed horror film to watch out for. Oliver Assayas who totally bowled us over two years ago with The Clouds of Sils Maria is back with a spooky story with an undercurrent of social commentary.
Assayas’ regular Kristen Stewart plays Maureen, an assistant to a fashion mogul in Paris who contacts a spirit of some sort. Festival darling Assayas picked up the Best Director award at Cannes earlier this year.
Old Stone
Director: Johnny Ma Country: China
We know China can be a weird place, and debut director Johnny Ma explores yet another bizarre quirk of the country: if you help someone in a car accident and take him to the hospital, you are liable to pay their rehabilitation fees for the rest of their life. The protagonist of the film, a cab driver finds himself in such a scenario in a film that bagged Ma the award for the best debut film at the Toronto International Film Fest earlier this year.
Graduation
Director: Cristian Mungiu Country: Romania
Graduation puts 4 Months 3 Weeks 2 Days director Mungiu back to his roots – in the underbelly of Cluj. The film follows a surgeon who for some reason is a target by unknown pranksters, and whose daughter is mugged and assaulted on her way to her exams.
With handheld cameras, bleak blue tones, and the exploration of grassroots corruption, Mungiu’s latest has been heralded as a return to form for a filmmaker whose previous film Beyond the Hills was criticized for being too self indulgent. Mungiu bagged the Directors trophy at Cannes for this film.
Things To Come
Director: Mia Hansen Love Country:France
Fast emerging as one of the most exciting filmmakers of this generation, Hansen Love’s new film follows a 50 year old woman who needs to come to terms with dealing with life after a divorce. Hansen Love bagged the Silver Bear for Best Director in Berlin, but her amazing work in her previous film Eden is enough reason to be excited for this one.
My Life As A Courgette
Director: Claude Barras Country: Switzerland
Celine Sciamma who earlier wrote the magnificent Girlhood teams up with director Barras for a stop motion animation about a 9-year-old boy who is put in an orphanage after his alcoholic mother dies — for which he may or may not be responsible.
Elle
Director: Paul Verhoeven Country: France
The filmmaker behind some of the most nihilistic films of all time like Robocop, Total Recall and Starship Troopers returns after years with Elle, another nasty takedown of the society we live in. This time the story follows a rich video game honcho named Michelle (Isabelle Huppert) who is attacked by a masked man at her Parisian home.
Like all Verhoeven’s previous films, Elle is supposed to present moral dilemmas with a satirical bite and a layer of icily dark commentary on sex, violence and, in this case, video games. It’s France official entry to the Oscars.
Sand Storm
Director: Elite Zexer Country: Israel
Winning the Grand Jury prize at Sundance, Elite Zexer’s film which is set in Southern Israel follows a Bedouin woman dealing with everyday sexism and not so casual misogyny of the region after her husband is about to be married to a second, much younger woman. That should be an interesting watch because it’s a topic that folks in India can unfortunately relate to all too well.
Hounds Of Love
Director: Ben Young Country: Australia
In case you’re looking for a serial killer movie, debut filmmaker Ben Young presents a highly intriguing one with Hounds of Love, which introduces us to a serial killer couple whose latest kidnapping victim realizes that the only way to escape is by getting the two psychos to turn against each other.
One other little aspect to convince you to see this film is that the many audience members at the Venice Film Festival walked out because they couldn’t stomach what was happening on the screen.
The War Show
Director: Andreas Dalsgaard, Obaidah Zytoon Country: Syria – Denmark
The War Show is supposed to be a blistering account of the Arab Spring seen through the eyes of radio host Obaidah Zytoon who began filming the state of things during and after the protests.
The Lovers And The Despot
Director: Rob Cannan and Ross Adam Country: Britain
It’s pretty obvious how demented and scary North Korea is, and it seems there’s no dearth of bizarre stories to come out of the country. This documentary brings us the real life story of a filmmaker couple who was kidnapped by Kim Jong II and were forced to make films in the country because the great dictator was a film buff.
Lantouri
Director: Reza Dormishian Country: Iran
Yet another fascinating film from Iran, we’re taken through three intertwining stories: one which follows a gang of thugs that attacks and kidnaps young children from families that gained their wealth through financial wrongdoings, another which chronicles a journalist who is not allowed to voice his opinion and the third which follows a prostitute who turns into a thug.
Clash
Director: Mohamed Diab Country: Egypt
After garnering acclaim for his film Cairo 678, Egyptian filmmaker Mohamed Diab is back with another interesting story that puts various characters in a single location – a police riot car during the raging bloody streets of Cairo when the Muslim brotherhood president Morsi was overthrown and the country went nuts.
After The Storm
Director: Hirokazu Koreeda Country: Japan
Like Father Like Son filmmaker Koreeda returns with another film with similar themes of isolation in the Japanese society. The film follows a writer struggling to live up to the success of his first novel and dealing with vices such as gambling and ego. While researching his next book he begins to spy on his ex wife who is now seeing another man. Reality hits him when he discovers that their son, in the custody of his mother is perfectly happy without him. The film has naturally received glowing reviews everywhere it’s screened.
The Salesman
Director: Asghar Farhadi Country: Iran
It’s Farhadi’s new film — that’s all you need to know.
Other Notable Mentions:
Swiss Army Man: A delightful tale of a suicidal man whose life is saved by a farting corpse.
The Wailing: Yet another engrossing watch from Korean maestro Hong Jin Na about a Korean village going through a turmoil after a Japanese man encroaches their territory.
Neruda: The new film from Pablo Larrain which has been garnering some terrific buzz.
Madly: A short anthology featuring directorial works fromAnurag Kashyap,Gael Garcia Bernal, Mia Wasikowska, Natasha Khan, Sion Sono and Sebastian Silva.
Death in Sarajevo: Danis Tanovic’s new film.
I, Daniel Blake: Festival darling Ken Loach’s latest which is sure to have insanely long lines – make sure you get to the screening hall early.
The 73rd Venice International Film Festival has been set in motion. The dates are out and the line-up has been released. The festival will pit twenty movies for the top prize named Golden Lion. From dramas to thrillers, the line-up is loaded with some power packed performances.
Venice Film Festival will kick start with the world premiere of La La Land. Directed by Damien Chazelle, the musical has already been the talk of the town due to the sizzling chemistry of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. The plot of the movie revolves around a jazz pianist who falls in love with an ambitious actress in Los Angeles.
Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven will be showcased before the curtain closes on the festival. The movie stars Denzel Washington in a plot set for the modern retelling of the 1960 classic about outlaws in the Old West.
Talking about the festival, director Alberto Barbera says that the focus of this year’s line-up has been philosophical and existential questions that prevail in films. He says movies which steer away from brutality of reality and every day news are approached. He clarifies that the idea should not be looked upon like a sort of escapism.
Venice Film Festival Nomination Line-Up
Ana Lily Amirpour, The Bad Batch
Stephane Brize, Une Vie
Damien Chazelle, La La Land
Derek Cianfrance, The Light Between Oceans
Mariano Cohn, Gaston Duprat, El ciudadono ilustre
Massimo D’Anolfi, Martina Parenti, Spira Mirabilis
Lav Diaz, The Women Who Left
Amat Escalante, La region salvaje
Tom Ford, Nocturnal Animals
Roan Johnson, Piuma
Andrei Konchalovsky, Paradise
Martin Koolhoven, Brimstone
Emir Kusturica, On the Milky Road
Pablo Larrain, Jackie
Terrence Malick, Voyage of Time
Christopher Murray, El Cristo ciego
Francois Ozon, Frantz
Giuseppe Piccioni, Questi giorni
Denis Villeneuve, Arrival
Wim Wenders, Les beaux jours
The popular one among the lot, The Light Between Oceans, to be showcased at Venice Film Festival, is a story about a couple who help a baby that drifts away in a rowboat. The cast of the movie includes Alicia Vikander, Rachel Weisz and Michael Fassbender.
The Venice Film Festival will also be remembering the great work by two legendary film directors, Abbas Kiarostami and Michael Cimino, reported Euro News. Both the directors recently passed away. Venice Film Festival comes to a close on Sept. 10 2016.
“They say that ‘the only thing that stays the same is change,’ and that’s especially true when it comes to the art of filmmaking when driven by fresh viewpoints and new methods,” said Barclay. “The future of film is dependent on newly blazed trails and creative leaps of faith which is what we’re honoring with our first-time feature film director award. Congratulations to these five emerging filmmakers who have created projects that are as bold as they are innovative.”
life and Denver in general. We recreated many events and incidents and pulled in a lot of people we stumbled on during pre-production in Denver, and used these elements to dictate what we would shoot.
and what is narrative. How did you approach this as filmmakers?
