MTFB'S FINAL OSCAR PREDICTIONS FOR TONIGHT

 FINAL OSCAR PREDICITONS FOR TONIGHT

Best Picture: Nomadland.  Upset Special: The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Best Direction: Chloe Zhao/Nomadland,  Upset Special: Emerald Fennell/Promising Young Woman.

Best Actress: Carey Mulligan/Promising Young Woman.  Upset Special: Viola Davis/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.

Best Actor: Chadwick Boseman/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.  Upset Special: Anthony Hopkins/The Father.

Best Supporting Actress: Yuh-jung Youn/Minari.  Upset Special: Maria Bakalova/Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.

Best Supporting Actor: Daniel Kaluuya/Judas and the Black Messiah.  Upset Special: Sacha Baron Cohen/The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Best Adapted Screenplay: Nomadland.  Upset Special: The Father.

Best Original Screenplay: Promising Young Woman.  Upset Special: The Trial of the Chicago 7.

Best International Feature: Another Round. Upset Special: Quo Vadis Aida.

Best Documentary Feature: My Octopus Teacher,. Upset Special: Crip Camp.

Best Animated Feature: Soul.  Upset Special: Wolfwalkers.

Best Original Score: Soul.  Upset Special: Mank.

Best Original Song: Speak Now/One Night in Miami.  Upset Special: Io Si/The Life Ahead.

Best Cinematography: Nomadland.  Upset Special: Mank.

Best Editing: The Trial of the Chicago 7.  Upset Special: Sound of Metal.

Best Production Design: Mank.  Upset Special: News of the World.

Best Costume Design: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.  Upset Special: Emma.

Best Makeup/Hair: Ma Rainey's Black Bottom.  Upset Special: Hillbilly Elegey

Best Sound: Sound of Metal.  Upset Special: News of the World.

Best Visual Effects: Tenet.  Upset Special: The Midnight Sky.

Best Animated Short: If Anything Happens I Love You.  Upset Special: Burrow.

Best Live Action Short: Two Distant Strangers.  Upset Special:  Feeling Through.

Best Documentary Short: A Concerto Is a Conversation.  Upset Special: A Love Song for Latasha

TFF Stats:

Nomadland nominated for six Oscars: Picture, Director, Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography and Editing.  I am predicting it to win four: Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay and Cinematography.

The Father nominated for six Oscars: Picture, Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Editing and Production Design.  I have predicted that it wins no Oscars tonight BUT...Hopkins is the Upset Special for Best Actor and his buzz has been growing for the past couple of weeks.  The Father is also the Upset Special for Adapted Screenplay.  

The only other TFF #47 is the Live Action Short nominee The Letter Room.

The most Oscars that TFF #47 films could snag in total tonight is 10.

The categories that feel to me like the ones that are going to be Oscar poll deciders are: Best Actress, the two screenplay categories,  Documentary, Song and, as always, the Shorts categories.

OSCAR PREDICTIONS FROM THE EXPERTS

Here are links to a number of Oscarologists for tonight's winners:

Sasha Stone/ Awards Daily

Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter

Clayton Davis/Variety

Mark Johnson/Good as Gold/Awards Daily.

Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson/Indiewire (Screen Talk podcast)

Erik Anderson/Awards Watch

Nathaniel Rogers/The Film Experience 

Steve Pond/The Wrap

Joey Magidson/Awards Radar

Matt Neglia (and crew)/Next Best Picture

Jason Osiason/Fantastic Film Fans

Gregory Ellwood/The Playlist

And of course, for the last time this Oscar season, the link to the final collective predictions of The Gurus of Gold at Movie City News.

I'll have some post Oscar thoughts in tomorrow's regularly scheduled edition of MTFB.

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Oscar Winners Predix #7: Picture, Director and Lead Acting Categories / Last Gurus of Gold for This Season / New Cousins Project-Could It Play TFF #48?

 OSCAR WINNERS PREDIX #7- PICTURE, DIRECTOR, LEAD ACTING CATEGORIES

Here's my next to last attempt to predict this year's Academy Awards winners.  THE FINAL MTFB OSCAR PICKS will go up on Sunday morning.  As always, TFF participants are indicated in Bold.

BEST PICTURE

1) Nomadland

2) The Trial of the Chicago 7

3) Promising Young Woman

4) Minari

5) Judas and the Black Messiah

6) Mank

7) Sound of Metal

8) The Father

BEST DIRECTION

1) Chloe Zhao/Nomadland

2) Emerald Ferrell/Promising Young Woman

3) David Fincher/Mank

4) Lee Issac Chung/Minari

5) Thomas Vinterberg/Another Round

BEST ACTRESS

1) Carey Mulligan/Promising Young Woman

2) Viola Davis/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

3) Andra Day/The United States vs. Billie Holiday

4) Frances McDormand/Nomadland

5) Vanessa Kirby/Pieces of a Woman

BEST ACTOR

1) Chadwick Boseman/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

2) Anthony Hopkins/The Father

3) Riz Ahmed/Sound of Metal

4) Steven Yeun/Minari

5) Gary Oldman/Mank

LAST GURUS OF GOLD FOR THIS SEASON 

The last Gurus of gold for this Oscar season is expected to drop at Movie City News in the next day or two.  You can expect to see collected takes from all of the Gurus for all 23 Oscar categories including the Short Film categories.

Other Gurus include Sasha Stone of Awards Daily, Peter Howell of the Toronto Star, Gregory Ellwood of The Playlist, Dave Karger of Turner Classic Movies and Steve Pond of The Wrap among others.

Bit of a Disclaimer: My predictions you see for the Gurus could have changed by Sunday morning!

NEW COUSINS PROJECT-COULD IT PLAY TFF #48?

Variety has a new interview out with film maker Mark Cousins that's focused on his new film The Story of Looking.  The article reveals that the film will be screened as a work in progress at the Swedish Visions du Real Festival.

The screening suggests that the new project could and likely will be available come Labor Day weekend.  Cousins has had an extensive track record at Telluride over the last several years with screenings of The Story of Film: An Odyssey, A Story of Children and Film and What Is This Film Called Love?

So, don't be surprised when the Telluride #48 lineup is announced if it includes The Story of Looking. 

The complete Variety article is linked here.

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Oscar Predix #6: Screenplays and Shorts / The Gurus Update / Cannes Commits and Late Breaking News from Cannes/ The Truffle Hunters Collect More Hardware

OSCAR PREDIX #6: SCREENPLAYS AND SHORTS

I'm back predicting the winners of this year's Oscars with less than a week left until the awards are passed out.  Today I am updating the Screenplay and Shorts categories.  As always TFF #47 film are in Bold.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Promising Young Woman

2) The Trial of the Chicago 7

3) Minari

4) Judas and the Black Messiah

5) Sound of Metal

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) Nomadland

2) The Father

3) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

4) One Night in Miami

5) The White Tiger

BEST ANIMATED SHORT

1) If Anything Happens I Love You

2) Burrow

3) Genuis Loci

4) Opera

5) Yes-People

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT

1) A Concerto Is a Conversation

2) A Love Song for Latasha

3) Colette

4) Do Not Split

5) Hunger Ward

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT

1) Two Distant People

2) Feeling Through

3) The Present

4) The Letter Room

5) White Eye

I'll have another set of predictions on Thursday and then a special Sunday morning edition of  MTFB with final predictions for this long, long Oscar season.

THE GURUS UPDATE

The newest Gurus of Gold is up at Movie City News.  We were tasked this week with predicting Best Picture as well as picking three upsets that would make us happy...not that would necessarily actually win.

You can find the latest Gurus of Gold predictions linked here.

CANNES COMMMITS

Lots of outlets were reporting this week that Cannes International Film Festival Director Thierry Fremaux is adamantly claiming that the fest will take place July 6-17 and will be a live not virtual event.

Variety was the first source that I could find that was talking about the commitment to the date back on April 8th.  The article also says the effort to schedule the world premiere of Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch for Cannes has been ongoing.  

Subsequently, I have discovered further news stories that are bolder about the fest's plans.  Rappler.com reporting that:

“We are sure that Cannes will take place in July,” declared Thierry Fremaux, director of Cannes Film Festival in our recent video conversation.

Thierry vowed that the world’s most prestigious film festival, which he has led since 2004, will go live, in-person from July 6 to 17 this year."

Fremaux is also quoted as having lined about The French Dispatch as well as Paul Verhoeven's Benedetta for the French fest:

“Regarding films, I, of course, won’t tell you any title except the films that we all know were already selected from last year, including by Wes Anderson (The French Dispatch) and Paul Verhoeven (Benedetta). They will be back in the official selection.”

Fremaux is also quoted as saying that he expects to announce the lineup in late May or early June.

Should Cannes actually take place in July, the fall film fests, including Telluride would largely be unaffected.  For TFF that probably means that the sharing of what is an on average of eight or so films with Cannes could still be likely.

The complete article from Rappler.com is linked here.

LATE BREAKING NEWS FROM CANNES...

Variety is reporting this morning that the 74th Cannes Film Festival will open with Leos Carax's Annette starring Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver.  Variety reports the film will screen on July 7th and will play in competition.

From Variety.

Here's the trailer that dropped with the announcement from YouTube:

THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS COLLECT MORE HARDWARE

Fresh off their DGA for Best Direction of a Feature Documentary on April 10th,  The Truffle Hunters directors Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw won the American Society of Cinematographers Award for Best Cinematography for a Documentary this past weekend.

The Truffle Hunters was a selection of TFF #47.

Mank won Best Cinematography for a Feature Film beating out Nomadland in a bit of a surprise.

Indiewire has the coverage of the ASC wards here.

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Oscar Winners Predix #5: Picture, Supporting Acting and More / Play Along

 OSCAR WINNERS PREDICITONS #5: PICTURE, SUPPROTING ACTOR AND MORE

I'm back predicting the winners of this year's Oscars with ten days left until the awards are passed out.  Today I am updating the supporting acting categories as well as predicting the winners for Costume Design, Makeup/Hair and Visual Effects for the first time since nominations were announced.  As always TFF #47 film are in Bold.

BEST PICTURE

1) Nomadland

2) The Trial of the Chicago 7

3) Promising Young Woman

4) Minari

5) Judas and the Black Messiah

6) Mank

7) Sound of Metal

8) The Father

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Yuh-Jung Youn/Minari

2) Maria Bakalova/Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

3) Glenn Close/Hillbilly Elegy

4) Olivia Colman/The Father

5) Amanda Seyfried/Mank

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Daniel Kaluuya/Judas and the Black Messiah

2) Sacha Baron Cohen/The Trial of the Chicago 7

3) Leslie Odom, Jr./One Night in Miaimi

4) Paul Raci/Sound of Metal

5) LaKeith Stanfield?Judas and the Black Messiah

BEST COSTUME DESIGN

1) Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

2) Emma

3) Mulan

4) Mank

5) Pinocchio

BEST MAKEUP/HAIR

1) Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

2) Hillbilly Elegy

3) Emma

4) Mank

5) Pinocchio

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS

1) Tenet

2) The Midnight Sky

3) Mulan

4) The One and Only Ivan

5) Love and Monsters

PLAY ALONG

Oscar voters get ballots and can start voting today.  In that spirit, Awards Daily has announced its annual Oscar predicting contest.  You can play along with everyone from amateurs to experts to the members of the Academy.  Heck, you can lift my predictions if you want to!

The link to get in on the fun is here.

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Oscar Winners Predix #4: Lead Acting, Score, Song and Sound / DGA Awards Some Telluride Players / Speaking of Directors / BAFTA Winners

 OSCAR PREDIX #4: LEADING ACTOR, SCORE, SONG AND SOUND

I'm back predicting the winners of this year's Oscars with less than two weeks left until the awards are passed out.  Today I am updating the lead acting categories as well as predicting the winners for Score, Song and Sound for the first time since nominations were announced.  As always TFF #47 film are in Bold.

BEST ACTRESS

1) Carey Mulligan/Promising Young Woman

2) Viola Davis/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

3) Frances McDormand/Nomadland

4) Andra Day/The United States vs. Billie Holiday

5) Vanessa Kirby/Pieces of a Woman

Note: This race is really tight, so it seems, with Viola Davis and Carey Mulligan neck and neck and just a hair in front of Frances McDormand and Andra Day.  I have Mulligan in the top spot but that could change by Oscar morning when I will be posting my final predictions in all 23 categories.

BEST ACTOR

1) Chadwick Boseman/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

2) Anthony Hopkins/The Father

3) Riz Ahmed/Sound of Metal

4) Steven Yeun/Minari

5) Gary Oldman/Mank

Note: Boseman stills seems to be the easy choice here but Hopkins BAFTA win yesterday does give one a little bit of a pause.

BEST SCORE

1) Soul

2) Mank

3) Minari

4) News of the World

5) Da 5 Bloods

Note: Soul is a prohibitive favorite.

BEST SONG

1) Speak Now/One Night in Miami

2) Io Si (Seen)/The Life Ahead

3) Fight for You/Judas and the Black Messiah

4) Husavik/Eurovision 

5) Hear My Voice/The Trial of the Chicago 7

Note: A fairly competitive category with Speak Now and Io Si (Seen) very close and a win for either Fight for You not out of the question.

BEST SOUND

1) Sound of Metal

2) News of the World

3) Mank

4) Soul

5) Greyhound

Note: Sound of Metal is a prohibitive favorite.

THE DIRECTORS GUILD AWARDS SOME TELLURIDE PLAYERS

The Directors Guild of America named their winners for excellence for 2020/21 and a couple of the big awards went to directors who would have been in Telluride last September had the fest been able to occur.

Chloe Zhao was named Best Director for a feature film for Nomadland and Michael and Gregory Kershaw were named Best Director for The Truffle Hunters.  Both films were listed by the Telluride Film Festival as films that would have played at the 47th edition.

The complete list of winners can be found here at the DGA website.

SPEAKING OF DIRECTORS

Jane Campion (via Variety)

As I was writing about the DGA results, I saw that Variety's Clayton Davis had re-posted an article named "Directors Whose Work We're Excited to See in 2021".  So, here's the f=directors from that list that have been to Telluride before and the projects that we expect to appear before the end of the year:

Andrea Arnold/Cow

Jane Campion/The Power of the Dog

Joel Coen/The Tragedy of MacBeth

Guillermo Del Toro/Nightmare Alley

Tom McCarthy/Stillwater

Denis Villenueve/Dune

Chloe Zhao/The Eternals

The complete list and more is linked here.

BAFTA WINNERS

Nomadland had a really fine night last night at the awards ceremony for the British Academy of Television Arts and Sciences winning four of the organizations Golden Masks.

Chloe Zhao's examination of the wanderers that make up a large community of R.V. dwellers in the American west won Best Picture as well Zhao for Best Director, Frances McDormand for Best Actress and Best Cinematography.

Florian Zeller's The Father also pulled off a major upset and a minor upset.  Anthony Hopkins upset Chadwick Boseman in the Best Actor category while Zeller and Christopher Hampton won Best Adapted Screenplay over Zhao for her Nomadland screenplay.

You can find the complete listing of BAFTA winners here from The Hollywood Reporter.

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Oscar Winners Predix #3: Picture and More / Mainstream Trailer / More Cannes Date Speculation

 OSCAR WINNERS PREDIX #3: PICTURE AND MORE

I'm back predicting the winners of this year's Oscars with 17 days left until the awards are passed out.  Today I am updating Best Picture and Director categories as well as predicting the winners for Cinematography, Film Editing and Production Design for the first time since nominations were announced.  As always TFF #47 film are in Bold.

BEST PICTURE

1) Nomadland

2) Promising Young Woman

3) The Trial of the Chicago 7

4) Minari

5) Judas and the Black Messiah

6) Mank

7) Sound of Metal

8) The Father

BEST DIRECTOR

1) Chloe Zhao/Nomadland

2) Emerald Fennell/Promising Young Woman

3) David Fincher/Mank

4) Lee Isaac Chung/Minari

5) Thomas Vinterberg/Another Round

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) Nomadland

2) Mank

3) News of the world

4) The Trial of the Chicago 7

5) Judas and the Black Messiah

BEST FILM EDITING

1) Sound of Metal

2) The Trial of the Chicago 7

3) Nomadland

4) Promising Young Woman

5) The Father

    BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) Mank

2) News of the World

3) Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

4) The Father

5) Tenet

MAINSTREAM TRAILER 

Goa Coppola's Mainstream was to have been a film that would have screened ata TFF #47 had it happened.  The film stars Andrew Garfield and Maya Hawke and has been dated for release on May 7th.  IFC, which is distributing the film, dropped a new trailer for the film earlier this week.  That trailer is here via YouTube:

MORE CANNES DATE SPECULATION

Roger Friedman's ShowBiz411 wrote yesterday that:

"I’ve already reported that the Film Festival has been eyeing a move to October. No one would be against that. It would put the festival in closer proximity to Oscar buzz."

That continues to fan the flames of the possibility of a Cannes fall festival that could turn the entire film fest season on its ear.

The complete Friedman article is linked here.

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Oscar Winners Predix: Animated, Doc, International / The Cannes-nundrum

OSCAR WINNERS PREDIX: ANIMATED FEATURE, DOCUMENATRY FEATURE, INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

Predicting the winners for the 93rd Academy Awards.  

ANIMATED FEATURE

1) Soul

2) Wolkwalkers

3) Onward

4) Over the Moon

5) Farmageddon: A Shaun the Sheep Movie

DOCUMENATRY FEATURE

1) My Octopus Teacher

2) Time

3) Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution

4) Collective

5) The Mole Agent

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

1) Another Round

2) Quo Vadis, Aida

3) Collective

4) The Man Who Sold His Skin

5) Better Days

Comments: Most years Telluride is represented in both the International and Documentary categories and on occasion TFF films pop up in the Animated feature category as well.  But that's not the case in this year of Covid.

As a matter of fact you have to go all the way back to 2004 for the last time that a TFF film wasn't nominated in at least one of the categories.

Both Soul and Another Round appear to be prohibitive favorites in their respective categories.  Meanwhile, the Doc category remains one of the most competitive and tight races as we count down the last three weeks before the winners are announced on April 25th.

In Thursday's post, I'll predict winners for Cinematography, Editing, Production Design and I'll update the Best Picture and Best Director categories.

THE CANNES-NUNDRUM

So I've written a good deal about the up-in-the-air 2021 Cannes Film Festival.  Those who are regular readers of this space know that Cannes selections often provide fertile ground for films that will eventually also screen at Telluride.  Eight films in 2019 played at Cannes before screening at Telluride over Labor Day weekend.

But the Cannes-nundrum this year is that Cannes is on the move.  Normally by this time we'd be deep into trying to discern what films would be Cannes selections for clues as to what 6-10 of them would end up in Telluride.  In 2019 Cannes named its list of films on April 18th.  But with Cannes saying they're fest will run in July (and rumors that it could be put off until October), what Cannes and/or Telluride watchers are left with is a world where too many uncertainties make predicting films that will play one or the other or both is ridiculously difficult.\

Take Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch.  It is widely assumed that the film will...probably...debut at Cannes.  But that talk has been around since before  Cannes 2020 was canceled because of the pandemic.  It was assumed, at least for awhile, that the film would simply move to Cannes 2021.  Even when Cannes organizers began pointing toward a possible delay until July, it seemed probable that Cannes would be the destination.  

Now add in that The French Dispatch along the way had a release date in mid-September.  That and Searchlight as a distributor made it a tempting film to predict for Telluride.  But The French Dispatch has no official release date as of now.  The Cannes uncertainty is likely the cause.  If the French fest ultimately ends up in October the fall film fest lineup of Telluride, Venice, Toronto and New York all would be impacted.

My guess, and it's just a guess, is that The French Dispatch goes wherever and however Cannes goes.  So if your any of those fall fests that have been thinking they could get Wes Anderson and crew for their fest-an October Cannes likely means that's not going to happen.

What other films could have to make that calculation?

Take a look at Jordan Ruimy's list of Cannes possibles (he updated it as recently as Mar. 28th):

Directors set to have new films ready by Cannes include 

”Soggy Bottom” (Paul Thomas Anderson)

”The French Dispatch” (Wes Anderson) 

”Annette” (Leos Carax) 

”Macbeth” (Joel Coen) 

”The Way of the Wind” (Terrence Malick)

”Ahed’s Knee” (Nadav Lapid) 

”Blonde” (Andrew Dominik)

”Memoria” (Apichatpong Weerasethakul) 

”Benedetta” (Paul Verhoeven) 

”Blossoms” (Wong Kar-wai)

”The Power of the Dog” (Jane Campion)

”Tromperie” (Arnaud Desplechin)

”Bergman Island” (Mia Hansen-Løve)

”Chocobar” (Lucrecia Martel)

”Les Olympiades” (Jacques Audiard) 

”The Souvenir Part II” (Joanna Hogg)

”Tre Piani” (Nanni Moretti) 

”Triangle of Sadness” (Ruben Ostlund) 

”The Hand of God” (Paolo Sorrentino)

"Mektoub: Canto Duo" (Abdelatif Kechiche)

“Benediction” (Terrence Davies)

“The Green Knight” (David Lowery)

“Italian Studies” (Adam Leon)

“Algerien Par Accident” (Karim Aïnouz)

“Last Night in Soho” (Edgar Wright)

“The Northman” (Robert Eggers)

“After Yang” (Kogonada)

“Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon” (Ana Lily Amirpour)

I'd imagine that for a good number of these directors, playing Cannes in October and not having an appearance at any of the fall fests prior to Cannes would be just fine (I expect Cannes will insist on world premieres regardless of the date they ultimately land on).

But a number of these folks have played Telluride and often as a pairing with either Cannes or Venice:

PTA, Malick, Coen, Campion, Hansen-Love, Audiard, Kechiche, Lowery.  What do they do and how will those choices affect Telluride and other festivals?  It's a puzzle I haven't begun to solve.

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Oscar Update: Predicting Winners in the Big Eight / More on Tavernier

 PREDICTING WINNERS IN THE BIG EIGHT

Here's my latest take on the Oscar winners in the Big Eight categories.  TFF films/performers in Bold.

BEST PICTURE

1) Nomadland

2) The Trial of the Chicago 7

3) Promising Young Woman

4) Minari

5) Mank

6) Judas and the Black Messiah

7) Sound of Metal

8) The Father

BEST DIRECTION

1) Chloe Zhao/Nomadland

2) David Fincher/Mank

3) Emerald Fennell/Promising Young Woman

4) Lee Isaac Chung/Minari

5) Thomas Vinterberg/Another Round

BEST ACTRESS

1) Carey Mulligan/Promising Young Woman

2) Frances McDormand/Nomadland

3) Andra Day/The United States vs. Billie Holiday

4) Viola Davis/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

5) Vanessa Kirby/Pieces of a Woman

BEST ACTOR

1) Chadwick Boseman/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

2) Anthony Hopkins/The Father

3) Riz Ahmed/Sound of Metal

4) Steven Yeun/Minari

5) Gary Oldman/Mank

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Maria Bakalova/Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

2) Yuh-jung Youn/Minari

3) Glenn Close/Hillbilly Elegy

4) Olivia Colman/The Father

5) Amanda Seyfried/Mank

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) Nomadland

2) The Father

3) Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

4) One Night in Miami

5) The White Tiger

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Promising Young Woman

2) The Trial of the Chicago 7

3) Minari

4) Judas and the Black Messiah

5) Sound of Metal

MORE ON TAVERNIER

A couple of more notes after the passing of Bertrand Tavernier last week:

The Playlist posted a story last week that centered on Martin Scorsese's remembrance of Tavernier.  That story is linked here.

Cannes Festival Thierry Fremaux has also memorialized Tavernier yesterday in Variety.  That is linked here.

Additionally, The Film Stage reports that Tavernier's My Journey Through French Cinema is out on Blu- Ray this week.

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Bertrand Tavernier 1941-2021 / News from a Reader / Updated Cannes List

BERTRAND TAVERNIER 1941-2021

Bertrand Tavernier at the Telluride Film Festival

French film maker Bertrand Tavernier died last Thursday a month shy of his 80th birthday.  Tavernier was a member of TFF's "Esteemed Council of Advisors" and had been for some time.  The first mention I can find for him as a member of the Council of Advisors is in the 1996 program.

Tavernier was guest director for the festival in 1990.  As director he programmed Pursued and Justin de Marseille.  He also presented a restoration of Jean Vigo's L'Atalante.  Tavernier returned to Telluride in 1993 with L627.  Life at Any Cost (Life and Nothing But) screened in 1998 and The Princess of Montpensier screened in 2010.

Tavernier last film to be featured as a part of the TFF program was 2016's My Journey Through French Cinema.  Prior to that Tavernier's Life at Any Cost (Life and Nothing But) screened in 1998; The Princess of Montpensier screened in 2010.

Tavernier won the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language in 1990 for Life at Any Cost.  Previously he had been nominated for that same award in 1985 for A Sunday in the Country which also earned him Best Directing honors at the Cannes Film Festival.

He was a 15 time Cesar Award nominee and won four:

 

Let Joy Reign Supreme (Screenwriting) in 1976, 

The Judge and the Assassin (Screenwriting) in 1977

A Sunday in the Country (Screenwriting) in 1985

Captain Conan (Directing) in 1997

Tavernier's IMDb page is linked here

Todd McCarthy posted this tribute to Tavernier at Deadline.com.

Peter Debruge writes about Tavernier in Variety

NEWS FROM A READER

Over the past few months I have occasionally received inquiries asking if I've heard anything about whether TFF #48 is going to happen, or if the Fest is going to sell more passes. Questions like that.  And the truth is that the answer is no.  I have known zip.  I wish I could tell you different.  Wish I had some inside scoop.  But no.  Nothing.  Until this past week.

I received a DM from a reader that's interesting. The conundrum I have now is deciding how much to divulge and that's tricky.  There have items that I have posted in this space before that have not gone over well with some of the fest folks.  It's happened enough that I think about that possible reaction when I run across some tidbit of info and try to decide if or how I should write about it.

So, I'm splitting the difference here.  I won't go into the details of the message but I will say that the gist of the DM makes me think that Fest organizers have a good deal of confidence that the Fest will move forward as planned over Labor Day weekend.  

UPDATED CANNES LIST

World of Reel's Jordan Ruimy remains on the job in terms of trying to ascertain what is happening with the Cannes Film Festival and what could be screening there whenever it does happen (June? July? September? October?).

Jordan posted over the weekend that he had come across a lengthy list of films speculated for Cannes from a site called Spoiler Movies.  From that list he has added to an original list of his from Feb. 8th that I referenced in my post of Feb. 11th.

Ruimy's expanded list from his new post is linked here.

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Producers Endorse Nomadland / Cannes Uncertainty

PRODUCERS ENDORSE NOMADLAND

The Producers Guild of America (PGA) named its winners for film and television last night and the win for Best Feature Film went to Chloe Zhao's Nomadland.  Pixar's Soul was named best Animated feature of the year.

A number of outlets suggested that the PGA win may well be the last indicator anyone needs to conclude that Nomadland will be the Best Picture winner when the final announcement is made on Oscar night, April 25th.

However, the PGA doesn't always presage an Oscar win.  In recent years 1917, La La Land and The Big Short won the PGA but then missed winning the big prize on Oscar night (per Indiewire's Anne Thompson).  As a matter of fact, the PGA historically matches with Oscar about 2/3 of the time according to Deadline. com the match has happened 21 times in the organizations 31 years of existence.

I have included links below to a number of sources covering the awards last night:

Variety

The Hollywood Reporter

Indiewire

Deadline

 Awards Daily

CANNES UNCERTAINTY

More reporting suggests that there is a possibility that the Cannes Film Festival may be looking at a move to the fall.  Roger Friedman of ShowBiz 411.  

Friedman's article suggests the potential of an October date and makes sure to mention that that would be post-Telluride, Toronto, Venice and New York though New York's normal run is late Sept. into October.

Friedman also pointedly mentions the chaos that would ensue among the fall fests and for the film makers should Cannes move to October writing:

"I’m thinking Thierry Fremaux must be having a nervous breakdown. The poor man. He didn’t get to have a 2020 Festival. And now this. He could show all the 2020 movies at this point in a sidebar. And no one knows what’s happened to Wes Anderson’s “The French Dispatch.”

Fall movies for festivals are a big question, too. Where will Steven Spielberg unveil West Side Story?"

The entire article is linked here.

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The Way Ahead? / "Soggy Bottom" Has a Date / Spring Cleaning

 THE WAY AHEAD?

In a normal year, I'd have made a hard turn from Oscar related stuff into serious tea-leaf reading about the possible films that we could see at TFF #48.  The Oscars would have happened two-three weeks back and as such, I'd be knee deep in trying to parse spec pieces about possible Oscar players for the coming year.  Which ones feel like TFF film choices?  I'd be eye-balling stories about possible Cannes selections and which of them might make the Cannes/Telluride double play? 

But, as you know, it's still not a normal year.  Oscar is still five weeks away.  Cannes plans are still unsettled.  Maybe a version of that fest happens in July.  Maybe it gets pushed to an even later date.  So, speculation about what films might end up as a Cannes selection is a sea of shifting sand.

Nevertheless, I was perusing the internet for items of interest to this blog and came across a post that included some early thoughts on films that could be potential films for Oscar talk at the end of 2021.  So, using that as a jumping off point, I've snagged some of those titles as worth at least thinking about as far as a TFF #48 play might be concerned.  I've opted to list these alphabetically.

Bergman Island

Blonde

The Card Counter

Don't Look Up

Dune

The Eyes of Tammy Faye

The French Dispatch

The Last Duel

Next Goal Wins

Nightmare Alley

Petite Maman

The Power of the Dog

Soggy Bottom

Stillwater

The Tragedy of MacBeth

Some of the above have a really good chance of being Telluride films (Card Counter, Bergman Island, Power of the Dog).  Others (Soggy Bottom, The French Dispatch, Dune) seem less likely.

SOGGY BOTTOM HAS A DATE

Bradley Cooper on the set of "Soggy Bottom" (via World of reel)

Of interest regarding "Soggy Bottom", which is still officially the "Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Project", is the announcement this past week that the film has an announced release date.  World of Reel reports the film is set for release on Sept. 10th which gives it time to play at Cannes (maybe), Venice (maybe) and/or Telluride.  The date makes a bow at Toronto unlikely but not impossible, as TIFF starts on Sept. 9th.  

The World of Reel story is linked here.

SPRING CLEANING

I've written about this a couple of times before.  I have a folder in the email account that I primarily use as the conduit for the news I think might be handy to have for the blog.  Every now and then I clean it out.  

I still have emails in the folder that date from as early as 2014...because you never know when an announced project will actually get up and go.  The earliest thing in there right now is announcements that Brit director Steve McQueen's next project would be a Paul Robeson biopic.  That project is still listed on my IMDb Pro account as a "project in development".

Anyway, Among the emails I just removed were tidbits for TFF selections The Way I See It, Charlatan, Mainstream, Judy and current Oscar frontrunner Nomadland.

I also dumped emails that at various points I had saved regarding The Trial of the Chicago 7, Mank, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom and 1917 among others.

So what else is still sitting in there?  The most recent announcements that I have culled are for:

The Ploughman

The Pale Blue Eye

Exit West

The Killer

White Noise

Being the Ricardos

Babylon

A Hero

Maestro

Lots more... 

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