21st Annual Gotham Independent Film Awards Winners

Last night was the awards ceremony that was not entertaining at all, so much that I completely fall asleep before learning live the main winners (lol!); but here are the winners in *BLUE.

Have seen both top winners movies and honestly, both did not impressed me; at least Beginners is more entertaining than Malick's latest. Surely the positive note -for me- is Dee Rees winning big as Breakthrough Director.

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10/20

The award season officially starts with the Gotham nominations that were announced today; this year the list probably will have one or two movies that will do well at Oscar thus not as last year when four of the five nominated for Best Feature made it to Best Film and/or other top Oscar award nominations.

To read the press release please go here.

Best Feature
*Beginners, Mike Mills
The Descendants, Alexander Payne
Meek’s Cutoff, Kelly Reichardt
Take Shelter, Jeff Nichols
*The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick

Breakthrough Director
Mike Cahill for Another Earth
Sean Durkin for Martha Marcy May Marlene
Vera Farmiga for Higher Ground
Evan Glodell for Bellflower
*Dee Rees for Pariah(lesbian interest)

Breakthrough Actor
*Felicity Jones in Like Crazy
Elizabeth Olsen in Marta Marcy May Marlene
Harmony Santana in Gun Hill Road (Gay/Trans interest)
Shailene Woodley in The Descendants
Jacob Wysocki in Terri

Best Ensemble Performance
*Beginners
The Descendants
Margin Call
Martha Marcy May Marlene
Take Shelter

Best Documentary
*Better This World, Katie Galloway and Kelly Duane de la Vega
Bill Cunningham New York, Richard Press
Hell and Back Again, Danfung Dennis
The Interrupters, Steve James
The Woodmans, C. Scott Willis

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You
Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, Madeleine Olnek (lesbian interest)
Green, Sophia Takal
The Redemption of General Butt Naked, Eric Strauss
*Scenes of a Crime, Blue Hadaegh and Grover Babcock
Without, Mark Jackson (lesbian interest)

Nominees for the Spotlight on Women Filmmakers ‘Live the Dream’ grant
Jenny Deller for Future Weather
*Lucy Mulloy for Una Noche
Rola Nashef for Detroit Unleaded

Voting for the Audience award begins today, to vote -in round one to select the nominees- go here. The nominees will be announced on November 7th and voting second round will start then.

The awards ceremony will be held on Monday, November 28 where Charlize Theron, Gary Oldman, David Cronenberg and Tom Rothman will be presented with a career tribute.

It’s only the first nominations but I hope that this award season follow Gotham nominees trend that show nominees from diverse films as only four films have more than one nomination. Have seen a few of these movies and I’m not excited about them, let’s hope that one or two of the ones I’m missing could excite me as much as last year’s Winter’s Bone and Black Swan or like Frozen River and The Hurt Locker from previous years.

THE RAID TRAILER v.2 !!!!

At INAFFF we premiered the extended trailer for THE RAID featuring a few extra bits of carnage and also a new piece of music by Fajar Yuskemal and Aria Prayogi (who also worked on the sound design for THE RAID while also composing the score for MERANTAU).

As promised, this version is now uploaded to Vimeo you can click the link or watch the embedded video below.



I promise I will answer your questions soon, most of which are about the delay of the Indonesian release. The reason I'm not saying much about that yet is that I'm waiting to having something concrete to tell you all.

As soon as I have something to announce I will. All I will say is that for those of you outside of Asia who usually are left waiting up to a year for a release, that's not the case this time...

Right, time to shut up now. More to come soon.

48th Golden Horse Awards Winners

Today the Academy had the awards ceremony and winners are in *RED.

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10/4

Today the Academy, chaired by none other than Hou Hsiao-Hsien, announced the nominations for the yearly awards and here are for some categories.

Best Feature Film
Let the Bullets Fly, Wen Jiang, China and Hong Kong
Gang de qin (The Piano in A Factory), Zhang Meng and Jae-young Kwak, China
Return Ticket, Yung-Shing Teng, China and Taiwan
桃姐 Tao jie (A Simple Life), Ann Hui, Hong Kong
* 賽德克．巴萊 Saideke Balai (Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale), Wei Te-Sheng, Taiwan

Best Director
Wei Te-sheg for Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale
Jiang Wen for Let The Bullets Fly
*Ann Hui for A Simple Life
Zhang Meng for The Piano in a Factory

Best New Director
*Wuershan for The Butcher, The Chef and The Swordsman
Giddens for You Are the Apple of My Eye
Xu Haofeng for The Sword Identiy
Du Jia-yi for KORA

Best Leading Actress
Michelle Chen in You Are the Apple of My Eye
Shu Qi in A Beautiful Life
*Deanie IP in A Simple Life
Qin Hailu in The Piano in a Factory

Best Leading Actor
Eddie Peng in Jump!Ashin
Ge You in Let The Bullets Fly
*Andy Lau in A Simple Life
Wang Qian-yuan in The Piano in a Factory

The Outstanding Taiwanese Filmmaker of the Year
Hsiao-Tung Chen
Yang Li-chou
*Wong Wei-liu

To check nominees and winners in other categories go here. Awards ceremony will be held on November 26.

THE RAID TRAILER v.1 IS HERE....

Apologies for the wait and my constant empty promises, but finally I've found some time to get back to the worlds worst kept blog and do some updates.

It's almost pointless me uploading this now seeing as it's already done the rounds considerably since the roller coaster that has been the last few months. But here it is anyway, a 720p HD upload of Sony's Red-Band trailer featuring music by Mike Shinoda and Joe Trapanese.

Right off the bat, this is a trailer for a film that has been made for adults. It is not intended for kiddos and contains a significant amount of blood and violence that could be seen as graphic and extreme, so you have been warned.

To quote Todd Brown ....

"Iko Uwais is a charming country boy no more....Twitch is proud to premiere the first trailer for The Raid and while the concept of the Red-Band trailer is unknown in Indonesia let's just say that this first trailer ain't going to get shown on theater screens there any time soon. Or ever. Loaded with a combination of technical fighting and raw brutality the trailer gives it to you straight: This is a movie about a group of men who must kill or be killed and a whole lot of them aren't getting out alive. And as hard as this might be to believe after you've seen the trailer let me tell you this: As crazy as things get this does not spoil any of the biggest moments in the film."

Now watch and please don't forget to comment below...

Alternatively, you can also see it direct at Vimeo. Will update with more soon as well as answer some of your questions.

5th Annual Asia Pacific Screen Award Winners

Last night (i.e. very early morning for me) the Academy had their award ceremony that you can watch here.  The following are the winners.

Best Feature Film: جدایی نادر از سیمین Jodaeiye Nader az Simin (Nader and Simin, A Separation), Asghar Farhadi, Iran

Jury Grand Prize: Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia), Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey

Achievement in Directing: Nuri Bilge Ceylan for Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia), Turkey
Best Performance by Actress: Nadezha Markina in Elena by Andrei Zvyagintsev, Russia
Best Peformance by Actor: Wang Baoqiang for Hello! Shu Xian Sheng (Mr. Tree) by Jie Han, China

Best Children’s Feature Film: Buta by Ilgar Najaf, Azerbaijan
Best Animated Feature Film: Madangeul naon amtak (Leafie) by Oh Seonyun, Korea
Best Documentary Feature Film: Jag Var Värd 50 Lamm (I Was Worth 50 Sheep) by Nima Sarvestani, Sweden, Japan and USA

Best Screeplay: Denis Osokin for Ovsyanki (Silent Souls) by Aleksei Fedorchenko, Russia
Achievement in Cinematography Award: Gökhan Tiryaki for Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da (Once Upon a Time in Anatolia) by Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey

UNESCO Award: Ivan Sen for Toomelah, Australia
FIAPF Award: Zhang Yimou

To check the announcement go here and to check nominees plus winners in all categories go here.

84th Academy Awards Documentary Features Shortlist

Recently the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that 15 films in the Documentary Feature category will advance in the voting process to select the five nominees. One hundred twenty-four films had originally qualified in the category.

These are the fifteen films that include extraordinary Pina by Wim Wenders that I hope will be chosen as a nominee in this category as well as in the foreign language category, which will increase its probabilities to win an extremely well-deserved Oscar.

Battle for Brooklyn, Michael Galinsky and Suki Hawley, USA
Bill Cunningham New York, Richard Press, USA (Yes, I’m very curious about this doc)
Buck, Cindy Meehl, USA
Hell and Back Again, Danfung Dennis, USA, UK, and Afghanistan
If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman, USA and UK
Jane’s Journey, Lorenz Knauer, Germany and Tanzania
The Loving Story, Nancy Buirski, USA
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky, USA
Pina, Wim Wenders, Germany, France and UK
Projected Nim, James Marsh, USA and UK (interesting, will watch)
Semper Fi: Always Faithful, Tony Hardmon and Rachel Libert, USA
Sing Your Song, Susanne Rostock, USA
Undefeated, Daniel Lindsay and T.J. Martin, USA
Under Fire: Journalists in Combat, Martyn Burke, Canada
We Were Here, David Weissman and Bill Weber, USA

As we know nominations will be announced live on Tuesday, January 24, 2012 and the awards ceremony will be on Sunday, February 26. To check the press release go here.

XXVI Goya Awards News – Latin American Films

A total of eight (8) Latin American films will be screened from December 16 to 23 to define the five that will be nominated for a Goya Award. These are the films.

Artigas-La Redota (aka La Redota-Una Historia de Artigas), César Charlone, Uruguay
Boleto al Paraíso, Gerardo Chijona, Cuba
El Páramo, Jaime Osorio Márquez, Colombia
Las Malas Intenciones (The Bad Intentions), Rosario García-Montero, Peru
Miss Bala, Gerardo Naranjo, Mexico
Reverón, Diego Rísquez, Venezuela
Un Cuento Chino (Chinese Take-Away), Sebastián Borensztein
Violeta se fue a los Cielos (Violeta Went to Heaven), Andrés Wood

To check the official announcement go here.