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Thursday, June 18, 2020

Oscar Has a New Date and the Dominoes Have Begun to Fall / First Domino: BAFTA / The Distribs: Neon

OSCAR HAS A NEW DATE AND THE DOMINOES HAVE BEGUN TO FALL



Oscar has moved.  The ceremony is now set to occur on April 25th after the AMPAS Board of Governors made that decision on Monday.  That's a full eight weeks later than the original date of Feb. 28th.

The decision was also accompanied by an extension of the exhibition eligibility widow to the end of February.

Those two decisions set off a chain reaction of other awards season programs as they adjusted to the new elongated season.

Of concern to readers of the space is how that will affect the lineup for TFF #47 and this is just another hurdle that makes planning for Telluride all the more unpredictable.

Pete Hammond writing at Deadline:

"The traditional fall film festival season, which traditionally kicks off the six-month movie awards season in early September at Venice/Telluride/Toronto, is also likely to be affected by the actions of the Academy’s board today. As one studio consultant just told me, anticipating these changes, “Who will have the stomach for an eight-month season?”

Josh Rottenberg writing for the Los Angeles Times:

"While the marquee fall film festivals in Venice, Toronto and Telluride have, for now, largely stuck to their plans, the postponement of the Oscars could also lead some of those gatherings to shift their dates as well, as the ripple effects spread through the whole awards-season ecosystem."

Anne Thompson of Indiewire:

...festivals from Venice and Telluride to Toronto and New York don’t know what form their annual events will take this year. Big titles like David Fincher’s biopic “Mank” starring Oscar-winner Gary Oldman, may thrive without a fall festival launch (Netflix has not committed to sending its films to festivals), but smaller, less pedigreed titles, that need discovery from media and audiences, could fail to build buzz and attention to become must-sees.

There’s another possibility with the Academy date shift: the festivals themselves can move back as well, allowing for safety concerns as well as finished titles to catch up with them.


Uncertainty upon uncertainty.

Here are the full stories from each of the above:

Deadline

The L.A. Times

Indiewire


FIRST DOMINO: BAFTA



The first domino to fall in the wake of the decision to push the Oscars to April was the British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced that they'll be doing their ceremony on April 11th.  It's BAFTA's adjustment to match up with this week's decision from AMPAS.

The Hollywood Reporter's Etan Vlessing has that story linked here.


THE DISTRIBS: NEON



I'm continuing to run down distributors that have had some history with the Telluride Film Festival in what is probably an incredibly futile effort to predict the TFF #47 lineup in a vaccine-free Covid-19 world. Today NEON!


Neon is coming off of last year's fantastic and historic run with Best Picture Oscar winner Parasite.  Their past with TFF looks like this:

2019: Parasite, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Amazing Grace
2018: Border, The Biggest Little Farm
2017: No SHOW
2016: The B Side: Elsa Dorfman

After last year's success, you have to figure that Neon probably wants to play at TFF again.  Of course we can't be certain of  anything currently.  Nevertheless, Neon has a couple of films that could be contenders for TFF #47 chief of which is Francis Lee's Ammonite starring a powerhouse duo of Kate Winslet and Saoirse Ronan.  The film has not yet been dated for release but went into post-production last in April of 2019.  So you have to figure that it is totally ready.

Another, lesser buzzed title under the Neon umbrella that could be possible is Michael Sarnoski's Pig starring Nicolas Cage as an Oregon man searching for his kidnapped, truffle snuffling pig.  

The third title that Neon has but that we will not see is Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Memoria that is widely believed to now be waiting for a slot at the 2021 edition of Cannes.

Chances:

Ammonite: 50%
Pig 25%
Memoria 0%


EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

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