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“A Different Man” was named the best independent film of the year at the 2024 Gotham Awards, which took place on Monday night in New York City.

The win for the drama starring Sebastian Stan came as a surprise at the end of a show in which “Nickel Boys” and “Sing Sing” had been the big winners, and in which “Anora” came in with the most nominations but left empty-handed.

In the gender-neutral acting categories, Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin won the lead and supporting awards for “Sing Sing.” Domingo’s category also included Pamela Anderson for “The Last Showgirl,” Nicole Kidman for “Babygirl,” Marianne Jean-Baptiste for “Hard Truths” and Mikey Madison for “Anora,” while Maclin’s included Yura Borisov for “Anora,” Guy Pearce for “The Brutalist,” Kieran Culkin for “A Real Pain” and Danielle Deadwyler for “Nickel Boys.”

“Nickel Boys” star Brandon Wilson won the award for breakthrough actor, while that film’s director,...

A24’s “A Different Man” won best feature at the 2024 Gotham Awards Monday night at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.

Meanwhile, “Sing Sing” swept the acting categories, with Colman Domingo winning for best lead performance and Clarence Maclin for best supporting performance.

Each category for nominations is decided by a different jury of critics, journalists and other industry professionals, and screening links must be provided to all its jury members. An entirely different group determines the winners. That’s in contrast with the Oscars or the BAFTAs, which are determined by actors, filmmakers and other artists who are in the entertainment industry.

In addition to the nominees, the Gothams bestowed special tributes to some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Oscar winner Angelina Jolie (Performer Tribute) for “Maria,” Emmy winner Zendaya (Spotlight Tribute) for “Challengers,” Timothée Chalamet and James Mangold (Visionary Tribute) for “A Complete Unknown,” and the...

When the 34th annual Gotham Awards took place in Cipriani Wall Street in New York City on Monday, December 2, the Oscar race officially began. The Gothams traditionally occupy a spot on the awards calendar as the first major film-centric ceremony of the season, giving fans their first opportunity to see the year’s biggest stars on the red carpet. The event also marks awards watchers’ first chance to gauge the state of the race.

The night’s top prize went to “A Different Man,” Aaron Schimberg’s A24 body transformation comedy that premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. The film, which stars Sebastian Stan as a facially disfigured actor who undergoes an experimental surgery to boost his career, beat out Oscar frontrunners such as Sean Baker’s “Anora” and Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers.” The win could boost the award chances of both Schimberg and his stars Stan and Adam Pearson.

The Gotham Awards, honoring the best in American independent films, held their 34th annual event on Monday night, Dec. 2, launching the fall and winter awards season. So who were the big winners? Scroll down for the complete list of 2024 Gotham Awards champs in all categories, updating live throughout the night.

Nominees were decided by panels of film critics, journalists, festival programmers, and film curators. The winners were then selected by juries of writers, directors, actors, producers, editors, and others directly involved in filmmaking. Those small juries change from year to year and from category to category, so these awards can produce surprising results.

Telling the story of a young sex worker from Brooklyn who meets and impulsively marries the son of a Russian oligarch, “Anora” led the nominations with four bids including Best Feature, as well Sean Baker for Best Director, actress Mikey Madison for Best Lead Performance and actor...

Vermiglio is the name of a mountain village in Northern Italy where director Maura Delpero stages a powerful drama of family, betrayal and coming of age.

Her visually sumptuous feature, winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival, takes place as the Second World War ends and one generation moves into the next. The slow-burn plot focuses on a teacher’s daughter who falls in love with an army deserter – and how the relationship impacts the lives of everyone in the village.

“Vermiglio” is Italy’s submission for the Best International Feature Oscar. Italy is the most awarded (14 Oscars) and most nominated (33) country in the category’s history, having last won in 2014 with Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty.” Delpero is the first women filmmaker submitted since Cristina Comencini (“Don’t Tell”) in 2005.

You have said that this project began with a dream. What was the vision that triggered the story?...

A24 knows sex sells, so it’s no surprise that the first U.S. trailer for Parthenope is full of seduction.

Newcomer Celeste Dalla Porta, playing the titular Parthenope, appears in various stages of undress throughout, emerging dripping from the sea in a bikini, draped in religious jewelry that barely covers her modesty, tangled up in what looks like a pre-threesome foreplay with co-stars Dario Aita and Daniele Rienzo.

It’s all sun, sea, and sex. Only one line, from Gary Oldman, playing a boozy John Cheever, to Parthenope: “Are you aware of the destruction your beauty causes?” suggests some darkness lurking beneath.

Parthenope

The film is Paolo Sorrentino’s love letter to Naples — his second, following 2021’s The Hand of God — and Parthenope, a mysterious, irresistible beauty, is the stand-in for the enigmatic pull the city has over him. It’s hard not to fall for the version seen on screen,...

The continuing fallout over Camerimage CEO Marek Zydowicz’s Cinematography Today column has forced the festival into damage control. A hastily assembled panel November 19 took on diversity and inclusion in the movie industry, a sore subject when only an estimated seven percent of cinematographers are women.

Moderated by Anna Higgs, a producer and Chair of the Film Committee at BAFTA, the Widening the Lens: Inclusion and Excellence in Our Industry panel held at the Toruń, Poland gathering featured several festival guests: Actor and producer Cate Blanchett; costume designer Sandy Powell; director of photography Mandy Walker; director of photography and, with “Pedro Páramo,” director Rodrigo Prieto; director of photography and British Society of Cinematographers president Chris Ross; and director Maura Delpero (“Vermiglio”).

Higgs insisted they weren’t there to discuss Zydowicz’s words. But she added immediately, “The idea that inclusion dilutes excellence is not up for debate.”

Maura Delpero, whose...

Who knew pop star Ariana Grande was an adept musical comedienne? That surprise discovery should land her an Oscar nomination for Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the global hit musical “Wicked”, which will prove a box-office juggernaut. On that much “Screen Talk” co-hosts Ryan Lattanzio and Anne Thompson agree; but he hates the cheesy visuals and loves Jonathan Bailey’s charismatic supporting turn as the romantic interest of both witches-in-training, while Anne admires the music, well-produced by Marc Platt and delivered with gusto by Cynthia Erivo and Grande.

“Wicked” follows Steven Spielberg’s recent “West Side Story,” which earned seven nominations in 2022 and a win for another supporting discovery, Ariana DeBose. And Rob Marshall’s film version of Bob Fosse’s “Chicago” (2002) was also one of 10 musical Best Picture winners. But we agree they were executed with more visual and technical mastery.

‘Juror #2’Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Both co-hosts...

Partners Sideshow Pictures and Janus Films open All We Imagine As Light on Friday and will follow the playbook for Drive My Car, the indie distributor’s first film that began a slow rollout about this time in 2021, collecting awards, nice grosses and finishing with an International Picture Oscar win amid a flurry of nominations. Payal Kapadia’s film, among the best reviewed of the year, was snubbed by India for an Oscar selection. Its distributor has something to say about that and is campaigning for other key categories.

Also this weekend, comedy A Real Pain with Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin from Searchlight Pictures hits 900-plus screens in a major expansion. Sony Pictures Classics’ Saorsie Ronan starrer The Outrun, which opened in early October and was down to 19 screens, is jumping back to 200 by popular demand, which is nice to hear.

Gkids debuts Ghost Cat Anzu on 300-plus screens.

Charlie McDowell’s The Summer Book starring Glenn Close and Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language Venice Golden Lion winner The Room Next Door starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton bookend the 37th AFI European Union Film Showcase.

Running December 4-22 at AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Maryland, the showcase presents 54 features representing all 27 European Union member states including 12 international feature film Oscar submissions and six US premieres.

Besides the festival’s Finnish opener The Summer Book and Spanish closing night selection The Room Next Door, Brady Corbet’s Venice Silver Lion winner The Brutalist from Hungary starring Adrien Brody is the centrepiece selection.

Spend some time in the mountains in Italy. An official trailer is out for the Italian film called Vermiglio, set during the end of World War II in the mountains in Italy. This first premiered at the 2024 Venice Film Festival, where it won the second place Grand Jury Prize, and was described by critics as a Terence Malick-esque tale of Italians in the mountains. It just played at the Montclair & London Film Festivals, and will also screen at Berlin's Around the World in 14 Films Festival next this winter before a US release at the end of December this year. Set in 1944, in Vermiglio, a remote mountain village. The arrival of Pietro, a deserter, into the family of the local teacher, and his love for the teacher's eldest daughter, will change the course of everyone's life there. Starring Tommaso Ragno, Giuseppe De Domenico, Roberta Rovelli, Martina Scrinzi, Orietta Notari, Carlotta Gamba,...

France’s Les Arcs Film Festival has unveiled the line-up for its 16th edition of its mountaintop movie marathon, taking place from December 14-21, 2024.

Eight European films will vie for the festival’s Crystal Arrow awards.

They include Rich Peppiatt’s Kneecap, a comedy about titular west Belfast hip-hop trio that is Ireland’s entry for the best international feature Oscar race and leads the Bifa 2024 nominations, Runar Runarsson’s Icelandic drama When the Light Breaks that opened this year’s Cannes Un Certain Regard, and Kurdwin Ayub’s Moon about a former Austrian martial arts master hired to train...

by Nathaniel R

Nominations are in the for 37th annual European Film Awards which will take place on December 7th in approximately one month's time. You may recall that last year was dominated by Anatomy of a Fall which took home six awards. It also proved popular with Oscar voters. Here are your nominees for the 2024 prizes. The awards ceremony moves each year. In December it moves to Switzerland for the first time. Oscar hopefuls The Room Next Door (hitting US theaters in December) and Emilia Perez (which hits Netflix next week) lead the nominations with four citations each. International Feature Film Oscar contenders like Denmark’s The Girl with the Needle, Germany’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Italy’s Vermiglio, Latvia’s Flow, Norway’s Armand and Senegal’s Dahomey were also popular with voters, scoring multiple nominations.

Although people don't tend to think of the EFAs as an Oscar precursor,...

The 37th European Film Awards, which take place annually in the lakeside Swiss city of Lucerne, have unveiled their nominations for 2024. Unsurprisingly, the list is led by French director Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language cartel musical “Emilia Pérez” with four nominations including European Film and Best Actress for Karla Sofia Gascón. Surprisingly, Audiard, previously a five-time Efa nominee, has never won a prize from the European Film Academy, which boasts more than 5,000 members across the continent. Getting a boost is Mohammad Rasoulof’s Iranian family thriller “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” with three nominations including European Film. It’s Germany’s submission for the International Feature Oscar this year due to its dominantly European production despite filming in secret in banished director Rasoulof’s home country.

European Film Award staple Pedro Almodóvar’s Venice Golden Lion winner “The Room Next Door” notched four noms including European Film, Director, Actress for Tilda Swinton,...

Jacques Audiard‘s “Emilia Pérez” and Pedro Almodóvar‘s “The Room Next Door” topped Tuesday’s 37th European Film Awards nominations with four apiece.

Both are up for Best European Film, Best European Director, and Best European Screenwriter prizes, while their leads, Karla Sofía Gascón in “Emilia Pérez” and Tilda Swinton in “The Room Next Door,” will face off in Best European Actress.

Mohammad Rasoulof‘s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” nabbed three nominations for film, director, and screenwriter. Coralie Fargeat‘s word-of-mouth hit “The Substance” scored two bids for film and screenwriter honors.

For the first time, films nominated for Best European Documentary and Best Animated Feature Film are eligible in the Best European Film category, leading to an expanded list of 15 nominees. Also making the cut for the top prize are Italy’s Oscar entry “Vermiglio,” Senegal’s entry “Dahomey,” and Latvia’s entry and animated film “Flow.

Neben der deutschen Oscareinreichung können sich auch Lars Eidinger, Franz Rogowski und Soleen Yusefs „Sieger sein“ Hoffnungen auf eine Auszeichnung bei den European Film Awards machen.

In einem Nominierungsvideo sind heute die Nominierungen in den Hauptkategorien für die Verleihung der European Film Awards am 7. Dezember in Luzern bekannt gegeben worden.

Insgesamt dreimal nominiert wurde Mohammad Rasoulofs „Die Saat des heiligen Feigenbaums“. Die deutsche Oscareinreichung wurde in der Kategorie European Film, in der in diesem Jahr erstmals auch Filme aus den Kategorien European Documentary und European Animated Feature berücksichtigt wurden, Rasoulof in den Kategorien European Director und European Screenwriter.

In der Kategorie European Actor konkurrieren die deutschen Schauspieler Franz Rogowski („Bird“) und Lars Eidinger („Sterben“) miteinander um einen European Film Award.

Für den European Film Award in der Kategorie Young Audience Award nominiert ist Soleen Yousefs „Sieger sein“.

Die Nominierungen im Überblick:

European Film:

• „Bye Bye Tiberias (Regie: Lina Soualem)

• „Dahomey...

Emilia Pérez and The Room Next Door have emerged as the front-runners for the European Film Awards 2024, with four nominations apiece.

The nominations for the main categories of this year’s awards, which take place on December 7 in Lucerne, were announced this morning by the European Film Academy.

Scroll down for full list of nominations

Fifteen features compete for the best European film prize, up from five last year. This follows a recent rule change which means that films shortlisted for the best documentary and animation categories can also compete in the section.

Emilia Pérez is nominated in the best European film category,...

The European Film Awards has broadened the scope of its prestigious Best European Film category for this year’s ceremony. Documentaries and animated features will now be eligible to compete alongside traditional narrative films for the top honor.

This change is reflected in the nominations announced ahead of the December 7 ceremony in Lucerne, Switzerland. A record 15 films are nominated in the expanded Best European Film category, representing a variety of storytelling formats. This includes narrative films like “Emilia Pérez” and “The Substance,” documentaries such as Mati Diop’s “Dahomey” and Lina Soualem’s “Bye Bye Tiberias,” as well as the animated film “Flow” by Gints Zilbalodis.

The directing category also highlights both established names and newcomers. Past winner Pedro Almodóvar received a nomination for “The Room Next Door,” alongside Jacques Audiard for “Emilia Pérez,” Andrea Arnold for “Bird,” Mohammad Rasoulof for “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” and Maura Delpero for “Vermiglio.

The nominees for this year’s European Film Awards have been unveiled, with “Emilia Pérez,” “The Substance” and “The Room Next Door” all up for best European film.

Movies also in the running for the ceremony’s top award — which was expanded this year to documentaries and animated features — include Lina Soualem’s “Bye Bye Tiberias”; Mati Diop’s “Dahomey”; Gints Zilbalodis’ “Flow”; Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Basel Adra and Hamdan Balla’s “No Other Land”; Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”; and Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio.”

“Emilia Pérez” and “The Substance” lead the nominees overall, with each film scoring four respective nominations. The winners will be revealed during an awards ceremony on Dec. 7 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

See all the nominees below.

European Film

“Bye Bye Tiberias” — documentary film, directed by Lina Soualem, produced by Jean-Marie Nizan, Guillaume Malandrin and Ossama Bawardi

“Dahomey” — documentary film, directed by Mati Diop,...

The Substance by Coralie Fargeat, Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard, The Room Next Door by Pedro Almodóvar, and The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Mohammad Rasoulof are among the nominees for the 2024 European Film Awards (EFAs), organizers unveiled on Tuesday.

Emilia Pérez and The Room Next Door earned four noms each, including for best European film and best director. Sacred Fig is up for the best film, best director, and best screenwriter prizes. The Substance is in the running for the best film and best screenwriter honors.

In the best actress race, Emilia Pérez star Karla Sofía Gascón faces Renate Reinsve, Tilda Swinton for her role in The Room Next Door, and The Girl With the Needle actresses Trine Dyrholm and Vic Carmen Sonne. For The Girl With the Needle, Magnus von Horn and Line Langebek are also nominated in the best screenwriter category.

Queer star Daniel Craig and...

Vermiglio is set in the eponymous alpine village during the waning days of WWII. Maura Delpero’s film, gorgeously shot by Leviathan cinematographer Mikhail Krichman, is a slow-moving fable that unfolds as a novelistic series of pastoral tableaus. The short chapters evoke Balzacian poetic realism and recall the sensual textures of last year’s The Taste of Things. But unlike that film, which exuded autumnal warmth and celebrated pleasure––therefore freedom––Vermiglio‘s stark, wintery beauty comes at the price of its characters’ desires. The painterly frames physically constrain subjects, especially women who suffer pointedly under the social restrictions of this time and place.

Its story meanders through the village but centers on a family of nine, especially the patriarch Cesare (Tommaso Ragno) and his daughters Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), Ada (Rachele Potrich), and Flavia (Anna Thaler). The central plot follows the courtship of Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), a traumatized army deserter,...

Das EnergaCamerimage – International Film Festival hat jetzt die letzten drei Filme für den Wettbewerb um den Goldenen Frosch bei der von 16. bis 23. November stattfindenden Festivalausgabe bekannt gegeben. Über den Gewinner entscheidet eine Jury unter dem Vorsitz von Cate Blanchett.

Hauptpreis beim EnergaCamerimage – International Film Festival: der Goldene Frosch (Credit: EnergaCamerimage – International Fillm Festival)

Mit Denis Villeneuves „Dune: Part Two” (hier unsere The-spot-Besprechung), Ridley Scotts „Gladiator II” und Steve McQueens „Blitz” hat das EnergaCamerimage – International Film Festival die letzten der insgesamt zwölf Filme für den Wettbewerb seiner von 16. bis 23. November stattfindenden Ausgabe bekannt gegeben.

Um den Goldenen Frosch sowie den Silbernen und den Bronzenen Frosch konkurrieren außerdem „Des Teufels Bad“ (hier unsere The-spot-Besprechung) von Veronika Franz und Severin Fiala, Edward Bergers „Konklave“ (hier unsere The-spot-Besprechung), Brady Corbets „The Brutalist“ (hier unsere The-spot-Besprechung), Mauro Delperos „Vermiglio“ (hier unsere The-spot-Besprechung), Jacques Audiards „Emilia Pérez“ (hier unsere The-spot-Besprechung), Rachel Morrisons „The Fire Inside“, Magnus...

Das Berliner Weltkinofestival hat jetzt das Programm von Wettbewerb und Specials seiner von 29. November bis 7. Dezember stattfindenden 19. Ausgabe bekannt gegeben.

Kurdwin Ayubs „Mond“ ist einer der Filme im Wettbewerb von Around the World in 14 Films (Credit: Ulrich Seidl Filmproduktion)

Das Berliner Weltkinofestival Around the World in 14 Films hat jetzt das Programm für seine von 29. November bis 7. Dezember stattfindende 19. Ausgabe bekannt gegeben.

Herzstück ist nach Angaben des Festivals der 14 Filme umfassende Wettbewerb in dem der

Basis Berlin Postproduction Award für Beste Regie vergeben wird. Unter den eingeladenen Filmen von zehn Regisseurinnen und fünf Regisseuren befinden sich auch Titel, die zuvor schon auf Festivals wie Sundance, Cannes, Venedig oder Locarno erfolgreich gezeigt wurde.

Die Wettbewerbsfilme von Around the World in 14 Films im Überblick:

• „Kill the Jockey”, Regie: Luis Ortega (Argentinien)

• „Sujo”, Regie: Astrid Rondero und Fernanda Valadez (Mexiko)

• „The Village Next to Paradise”, Regie: Mo Harawe (Somalia)

• „Vermiglio”, Regie: Maura Delpero...

At this stage of the Oscar race, several things are certain. Palme d’Or winner “Anora” (Neon), which scored four nominations on October 29 for the first of the award shows of the season, the Gothams, remains the frontrunner in the Oscar race. Sean Baker’s film is followed by Netflix’s French Oscar submission “Emilia Pérez,” which was not eligible for Best Feature but didn’t land an international nod, either. Does “Emilia Pérez” need a Gothams nod in its pursuit of Oscar glory? No.

As regional festivals announce their award winners, the Gothams serve mainly as an opportunity to put some titles on the board for consideration, maybe inspiring Academy voters to watch a film they never heard of. Most of the juries for the Gotham nominations are critics, many based in New York and Los Angeles. This recognition provides clues as to where the New York and Los...

The first nominations of the season are in as contenders for the 34th Gotham Awards were unveiled on Tuesday, with Anora, Hard Truths, and The Last Showgirl among 39 features and 25 performances in the running for nine awards.

Nominees were announced via X and seesAnora, whichleads the way on four nods,Babygirl, Challengers, A Different Man, and Nickel Boys up for the best feature prize, while Pamela Anderson, Adrien Brody, Saoirse Ronan, Mikey Madison, and Demi Moore are in the running for best lead performance.

Nickel Boys and I Saw The TV Glow each earned three nominations, while Hard Truths garnered two.

The nominations for the 34th Gothams Awards were unveiled on Tuesday, with Anora, Hard Truths, and The Last Showgirl among 39 features and 25 performances in the running for nine awards.

Nominees were announced via X and seesAnora, whichleads the way on four nods,Babygirl, Challengers, A Different Man, and Nickel Boys up for the best feature prize, while Pamela Anderson, Adrien Brody, Saoirse Ronan, Mikey Madison, and Demi Moore are in the running for best lead performance.

International feature film nominees are All We Imagine As Light, Green Border, Hard Truths, Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell, and Vermiglio.

The inaugural best...

The Gotham Film and Media Institute announced Tuesday the nominations for the 34th annual Gothams, honoring 39 features and 25 performances across nine award categories. Nominees were chosen by a group of journalist- and programmer-led committees. This is the first major awards body to share nominations for the year in film, and here, the Gothams are led by “Anora,” “Babygirl,” “Challengers,” “A Different Man,” and “Nickel Boys” in the Best Feature category.

“We are proud to announce the nominees for The Gothams, selected by nominating committees who bring their independent perspective to the selection process. This year’s nominations celebrate voices from across the globe, embodying the growing embrace of international cinema by audiences everywhere. We look forward to celebrating our nominees and our Gotham tributes in a few weeks,” said Gotham Film and Media Institute executive director Jeffrey Sharp.

Per the Institute, nominees are chosen by committees of film critics, journalists,...

Academy members who are voting in the Best International Feature Film category have been given 85 different films to consider, according to emails sent to voters on Friday and obtained by TheWrap.

The 85 films make up the smallest field in the category in nine years. Last year saw 88 qualifying films, after the total number of eligible films had topped 90 in five of the previous six years. The record was 93, set in 2000.

In late September, all prospective voters in the category received emails inviting them to vote in the international category and telling them that those who opted in would receive emails with their assigned viewing on Friday, Nov. 1. But those emails came a week early, going to prospective voters on Friday afternoon, Oct. 25, and separating the members into seven separate groups.

Each group was given a list of 12 or 13 films to view, either in the Academy’s members-only screening platform devoted...

Set in a remote Italian village in 1944, Maura Delpero’s film Vermiglio tells the story of one family’s struggles in a world at the mercy of forces outside their control. Delpero, who drew from her own family history, directs us into the insular community of Vermiglio, located high in the Italian Alps.

It’s a place that’s been left decades behind the modern world due to its isolation. With able-bodied men away fighting in World War II, the village is populated solely by women, children, and elderly men.

At the center of the film is the Graziadei family, led by Cesare, the local schoolteacher respected by villagers. He lives with his wife Adele and their three daughters—the spirited Lucia, intellectual Flavia, and soul-searching Ada. They also have four sons. With the family feeling the deprivations of war, their tight-knit community becomes all the more important for support.

Chicago – The 60th Chicago International Film Festival (Ciff) announced its competitive award winners on October 25th, 2024, and the recipient of The Gold Hugo in the International Feature Film Competition – the festival’s top honor – is Italy’s ‘Vermiglio” (directed by Maura Delparo), regarding a woman and family complexities in the Italian Alps.

Picking up the Festival’s Silver Hugo in the International Feature Film competition is a multi-internationally produced “All We Imagine as Light” (directed by Payal Kapadia). In the New Directors Competition, Mo Harawe’s “The Village Next to Paradise” is awarded the Gold Hugo, with Maryam Moghaddam & Behtash Sanaeeha “My Favourite Cake” receiving the Silver Hugo. The complete list of honorees is below.

“The winning films at the 60th edition of the Chicago International Film Festival reflect a broad diversity of subject, style, and geography,” said Mimi Plauché, the Robert and Penelope Steiner Family Foundation Artistic Director of the Chicago International Film Festival.

The Chicago International Film Festival is wrapping up its 60th edition by handing out its prizes. In fact, though the New York Film Festival has been around longer (it just wrapped its 62nd festival), Chicago is the longest running fest in North America to give out awards. And as you’d expect from this festival that’s especially focused on international film, its winners have also been standouts at Cannes and Venice.

The Best Film winner, or Gold Hugo, at the Chicago International Film Festival is Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio,” a World War II drama centered in the Alps that drew praise out of Venice, though received a mixed reception from IndieWire. Italy has named the film its entry for next year’s Best International Feature competition at the Academy Awards. The previous three winners of the Gold Hugo at Chicago are Gabor Reisz’s “Explanation for Everything,” Hlynur Palmason’s “Godland,...

Zu den ersten drei Titeln, die das EnergaCamerimage – International Fillm Festival vor einer Woche für den Wettbewerb um den Goldenen Frosch bekannt gegeben hat, sind jetzt weitere drei hinzugekommen.

„Konklave“ ist in den Camerimage-Wettbewerb eingeladen worden (Credit: Philippe Antonello/Focus Features)

Der Wettbewerb des EnergaCamerimage – International Fillm Festival um den Goldenen Frosch nimmt mehr und mehr Gestalt an. Zu den vor einer Woche veröffentlichten Titeln sind jetzt weitere drei hinzugekommen.

So wurden jetzt Edward Bergers „Konklave“ (hier unsere Spot-Besprechung), der zuvor in Telluride, Toronto und San Sebastian zu sehen war, Brady Corbets „The Brutalist“ (hier unsere Spot-Besprechung), der zuvor in Toronto und Venedig gezeigt worden war, und Maura Delperos italienische Oscareinreichung „Vermiglio“ (hier unsere Spot-Besprechung), in diesem Jahr Wettbewerbstitel in Venedig, in den Wettbewerb des Festivals, das von 16. bis 23. November im polnischen Torun stattfindet, eingeladen worden.

In den Wettbewerb um den Goldenen Frosch gehen in der Regel rund ein Dutzend Filme.

The Camerimage Film Festival has added several high-profile films to its 2023 lineup that will compete for the Golden Frog, the festival’s prestigious award honoring cinematography excellence. Edward Berger’s Vatican thriller “Conclave” and Brady Corbet’s architectural epic “The Brutalist” both recently premiered at major film festivals and will screen at Camerimage next month. Also newly announced is Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio,” recipient of the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival.

“Conclave” had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival. The film stars Academy Award nominee Stanley Tucci as Cardinal Lawrence, whose new role overseeing the papal election is complicated by conspiracy. Co-stars include John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini. Through Lawrence’s eyes, viewers explore intrigues that endanger the Roman Catholic Church’s foundation.

Fresh from debuting in Venice, “The Brutalist” chronicles Hungarian-Jewish architect László Tóth’s immigration to America in 1947. Adrien Brody takes the lead role,...

Edward Berger’s latest Conclave and Brady Corbet’s much-talked-about epic The Brutalist are among the titles that have been added to this year’s Camerimage Film Festival lineup.

Joining those titles is Vermiglio by Maura Delpero. Vermiglio debuted at this year’s Venice Film Festival. The Brutalist also had its debut bow at the Italian festival while Conclave premiered at Telluride.

Conclave follows Cardinal Lawrence who is tasked with running the covert process after the unexpected death of the beloved Pope. Once the Catholic Church’s most powerful leaders have gathered from around the world and are locked together in the Vatican halls, Lawrence finds himself at the center of a conspiracy and discovers a secret that could shake the very foundation of The Church. Starring in the pic are Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, Lucian Msamati, Brían F. O’Byrne, Carlos Diehz, Merab Ninidze, Thomas Loibl with Sergio Castellitto and Isabella Rossellini.

This time of year, major fall festivals give way to regional fests around the country, which program a mix of Oscar contenders and international Oscar submissions. The better-resourced festivals bring in talent to regale the Academy members on hand, from the Hamptons and Woodstock to Savannah. Audience award winners gain momentum, such as “Conclave” (Focus Features), which won at both Middleburg and Mill Valley. And at this year’s BendFilm Festival in Oregon, ex-Sundance festival director John Cooper launched the inaugural BendFilm: Basecamp.

Filmmakers and their casts did not make the trek to the Orcas Island Film Festival (October 16-20), which has built up a passionate following over 10 years. Coaxing distributors to send them DCPs is Carl Spence, veteran of the Seattle, Palm Springs, Miami, and Sonoma fests, who runs Orcas Island with local culture impresario Donna Laslo. It was fun taking the puddle jumper from Seattle to Orcas Island...

Exclusive: Sideshow and Janus Films have set a December 25 U.S. theatrical release date for Venice Silver Lion winner Vermiglio. The drama from writer, director and producer Maura Delpero is also Italy’s submission to the Best International Feature Film Oscar category. Delpero is the first woman to represent the country in 19 years.

A portrait of a sprawling family, Vermiglio is set in 1944, in the titular high-mountain village of the Italian Alps where war looms as a distant but constant threat. The arrival of Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), a taciturn Sicilian soldier who hides out in town after deserting the army, disrupts the dynamics of the local teacher’s family, changing them forever. He develops a romance with the eldest daughter, Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), which ends up having unforeseen consequences for everyone. As the world emerges from its tragedy, the family will face its own.

Also starring are Tommaso Ragno and Roberta Rovelli.

As we get closer to the end of 2024 and various critics and voting bodies collate their year-end lists and ballots, the question of what is eligible for such selection often crops up. It’s become common practice for distributors to give a quiet, one-week awards-qualifying run divorced from the standard promotion a theatrical rollout will earn, instead saving that for a window early the following year.

To help keep better track of these releases, we’ve started a feature detailing films designated in this category. As we begin our year-end coverage in the coming months, here at The Film Stage we consider any feature that receives a one-week qualifying run in a U.S. theater to be a release in that year, so expect a number of these to be featured soon.

Check out the list, in chronological order based on the qualifying run, below. If you are a reader...

The Valladolid International Film Festival, Seminci, will take place for the 69th time this fall, running Oct. 18-26.

To prepare, we’ve scanned the festival’s catalog for ten standout titles that attendees won’t want to miss at this year’s event. Below, we explain why each is a must-see proposition at this year’s Semicni.

“They Will Be Dust,” Carlos Marques-Marcet (Spain)

Opening this year’s festival is Carlos Marques-Marcet’s Toronto Platform winner, “They Will Be Dust.” In this tragicomic musical, a woman diagnosed with a terminal illness decides to go to Switzerland to end her life, accompanied by her partner of 40 years, Flavio. Seminci organizers praise the film as “an unexpected celebration of life itself and of the unconditional love of those who accompany us along the way.”

“Vermiglio,” Maura Delpero

Italy’s submission to the upcoming International Feature Oscar race, Maura Delpero’s intimate epic “Vermiglio,...

Un escaparate del mejor cine europeo del año. © Seff

La 21 edición del Festival de Cine Europeo de Sevilla se celebrará del 8 al 16 de noviembre y ya se conoce la programación completa. En total son veintidós estrenos en España, ocho mundiales y dos internacionales. 

La sección oficial contará con un jurado de altísimo nivel presidido por el productor británico David Puttnam y con el actor británico Jeremy Irons, la directora artística del Rome Film Fest, Paola Malanga, la programadora francesa Eva Rekettyei y la directora francoargelina Mounia Meddour. Ellos serán los encargados de decidir el palmarés de esta vigésimo primera edición que cuenta en su sección oficial con títulos destacados como Flow, la película representante de Letonia en los Oscars, Julie Keeps Quiet, representante de Bélgica, The Girl with the Needle, representante de Dinamaca, y Santosh, representante de Reino unido. Otros títulos de la sección oficial incluyen A Missing Part, que se presentó en Toronto,...

Gints Zilbalodis’ animated feature Flow, Latvia’s submission for the Oscars, won the €2,000 Golden Athena award for best film at the Athens International Film Festival (October 2-14).

The film, which also collected the audience award, premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section earlier this year and has since won prizes at Annecy, Melbourne, and Guadalajara, and has been shortlisted for the upcoming European film awards.

It centres on a cat who teams up with a capybara, a lemur, a bird, and a dog after a flood destroys his home. Local theatrical distributor and platform Cinobo picked up Greek rights.

The...

The 21st Sevilla European Film Festival will take place this Nov. 8-16, and Variety has been given an exclusive heads-up on this year’s competition juries that will choose the winners of the Gold and Silver Giraldillos as well as the special judges’ prize and a new award, the Puerta América Award.

Dedicated specifically to contemporary European film, Sevilla aims to bring the best in European cinematographic culture to the south of Spain for dialogues between the new artists and recognized figures from the industry while also dedicating space to new media for cinematographic expression.

Jurists for this year’s main competition section include British producer David Puttnam, who will chair the jury, Oscar-winning British actor Jeremy Irons, Rome Film Fest artistic director Paola Malanga, French programmer Eva Rekettyei, and French-Algerian director Mounia Meddour (“Papicha”).

Accompanying today’s jury announcements, Sevilla shared details about its new Puerta América Award, granted...

Watching “Babygirl” at the Venice Film Festival, I thought, “Isabelle Huppert is going to like this.” Here is a provocative movie, directed by Halina Reijn, starring Nicole Kidman as a corporate CEO engaging in kink and sexually submitting herself to a younger intern (Harris Dickinson). Kidman’s Romy cuts a powerful silhouette in the office by day, but by night, she’s on all fours being dominated in increasingly adventurous sexual encounters.

With Huppert as jury president, it was no surprise when Kidman won Best Actress, as Huppert famously stars in the darkly perverse “The Piano Teacher,” a movie Reijn’s script is surely in deep conversation with. In the 2001 Michael Haneke film, Huppert played a stoic music instructor who becomes sexually overpowered by a younger pupil. I went into “Babygirl” expecting the American version of “The Piano Teacher,” though Reijn’s film is more buoyantly sex-positive than sinisterly Freudian.

Predicting the eventual five Oscar nominees for Best International Feature is made difficult by the three-step process that begins after the October 2, 2024 deadline for countries to submit entries. To be part of the selection process for this category, which was called Best Foreign Language Film before 2020, requires a great deal of dedication. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2025 Oscar predictions for Best International Feature.)

In the days following the deadline for submissions, the academy determines each film’s eligibility. Then the several hundred academy members who serve on the International Feature screening committee are divided into groups and required to watch all their submissions over a six-week period that ends in early December. Their top 15 vote-getters will make it to the next round. That list of semi-finalists will be revealed on December 17, 2024.

These 15 films will be made available to the entire academy membership who can cast ballots for the final...

The upcoming 2024 London Film Festival will feature an array of films from renowned directors around the world. Festival organizers have crafted a lineup that includes international stories on important issues as well as biopics of iconic figures. Films showcasing both new and veteran talents from genres like drama, historical fiction, and surreal experiences will be part of the event.

One of the most anticipated premieres is Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut film “The Room Next Door.” Starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton, the film explores human connection during a moment of crisis. Almodóvar recently won the Golden Lion award for the film at the Venice Film Festival. Festival organizers described the film as examining “the complexities of human connection.”

Acclaimed British filmmaker Steve McQueen will debut his new historical drama “Blitz” about London during World War II. The film follows a woman, played by Saoirse Ronan, searching for her missing son amid German air raids.

The Chicago International Film Festival is gearing up for its 60th edition with an exciting lineup of global cinema, running from October 16 to 27, 2024. This year’s competition slate promises a wide array of international storytelling, with films spanning from Azerbaijan to Brazil, Japan to Tunisia, all competing for the festival’s prestigious Gold Hugo awards. The films are set to debut across multiple categories: International Feature, International Documentary, and New Directors, along with entries for the OutLook and Shorts competitions.

A remarkable 30 feature films are making their North American or U.S. premieres, with three world premieres adding to the anticipation. Some filmmakers are no strangers to Chicago, returning to the festival after prior successes, like Péter Kerekes, whose film 107 Mothers earned him the Silver Hugo for Best Director in 2020, and documentary powerhouse Joshua Oppenheimer.

Among the festival’s top-tier International Feature Competition, several standout titles have already made waves at Cannes,...

Maura Delpero’s “Vermiglio,” which recently won the Venice Film Festival’s Silver Lion and is Italy’s international Oscars contender, is scoring stellar returns at the local box office and fast becoming the country’s indie darling.

The intimate period drama, which is largely spoken in Northern Italian dialect and is playing with Italian-language subtitles in local cinemas, has been rapidly turning into a surprise local box office sensation, gradually going from a 26 screen micro-release on Sept. 19 via distributor Lucky Red to a much wider 340-screen outing this past weekend.

“Vermiglio,” now in its third frame, this past weekend clocked in second only to “Joker: Folie à Deux,” according to national box office compiler Cinetel.

The film has so far pulled €1.2 million ($1.3 million), which makes it “the top Italian indie film of 2024,” said Lucky Red head of theatrical Gabriele D’Andrea. He noted that “Vermiglio” will wind up outperforming the...

Unlike the Oscar Best Picture race, which doesn’t have a real frontrunner at this point, there’s a clear favorite in the Best International Feature Film category.

With the deadline for submissions in the category passing on Wednesday and Academy members invited to become voters in the category on Friday, one big question looms over this year’s race: Can anything beat “Emilia Perez”?

At the moment, the answer appears to be no. With 82 countries having announced their entries in the race, no other film has anywhere near the visibility of the French entry, Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical about a Mexican drug lord who undergoes sex reassignment surgery. The film has U.S. distribution from Netflix and is considered a strong candidate for a Best Picture nomination, which in five of the last six years has been a ticket to victory in the international race.

Still, it’s...

Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7:00 p.m. Et/ 4:00 p.m. Pt. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

Now that submissions are closed for Best International Feature, the field of contenders has exploded, with more titles from different countries still to be announced.

While this is the case every year (think back to the whole debate over France snubbing “Anatomy of a Fall”), what has been striking about this year is that there seems to be the same buzz around titles that did not make the cut as there is about the films that are representing countries. For example, “No Other Land,” “April,” and “All We Imagine As Light,...

The Virginia Film Festival is kicking off its 37th year with a lineup featuring a couple of Cannes winners that are now taking the fall festival circuit by storm.

Located in Charlottesville, and set for October 30 through November 3, the festival has chosen Sean Baker’s “Anora” as its Opening Night Film. The dramedy, which stars Mikey Madison as a Brooklyn sex worker who enters into a whirlwind romance with the son of a Russian oligarch, won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and was a runner-up for the coveted People’s Choice Award at TIFF. In addition to special guests from the cast set to be in attendance, Tom Quinn, Founder and CEO of Neon, the film’s distributor, will be on hand to receive the inaugural Impresario Award on behalf of the company.

For the Centerpiece Film, the festival has programmed Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” which has had...

AFI Fest is primed and ready to roll out.

The American Film Institute revealed the full lineup for this month’s festival, scheduled to take place in Los Angeles from Oct. 23-27. Joining the previously announced roster of films will be Tim Fehlbaum’s September 5, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, Samir Oliveros’ The Luckiest Man in America, Maisie Crow and Abbie Perrault’s abortion rights documentary Zurawski v Texas (executive produced by Hillary Clinton, Chelsea Clinton and Jennifer Lawrence), and Paul Schrader’s Oh, Canada, among many others.

The lineup includes six red carpet premieres, 12 special screenings, 13 luminaries picks, 15 discovery films, 12 world cinema films, 14 documentaries, four after-dark titles, 54 films in the short film competition and 28 films from the AFI Conservatory Showcase presented by AMC Networks. Other notable titles include Durga Chew-Bose’s Bonjour Tristesse with Chloë Sevigny; Mike Leigh’s Hard Truths, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste; Paolo Sorrentino...