When I started publishing my Academy Awards 2023 nominees predictions, I must confess I was stopped by a huge amount of professional work and I wasn't fast enough so I could publish it before going on vacation. The thing is: Venice Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and Telluride Film Festival happened meanwhile, shaping (and changing) the awards prospects of a big couple movies. And things keep changing!
Soon we will have the first reactions and reviews for some releases set for New York Film Festival, which starts screenings today, and then there will be Middleburg Film Festival as well (and BFI London Film Festival starts on October 5 for 2 weeks of screening).
So, it's time to recap the big winners of each major film festival until now, hoping it can give us some clarity besides the box-office numbers:
- SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL
GRAND JURY PRIZES
U.S. Documentary Competition – The Exiles (Ben Klein and Violet Columbus)
World Cinema Dramatic Competition – Utama (Alejandro Loayza Grisi)
World Cinema Documentary Competition – All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen)
World Cinema Dramatic Competition – Utama (Alejandro Loayza Grisi)
World Cinema Documentary Competition – All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen)
AUDIENCE AWARDS
U.S. Dramatic Competition – Cha Cha Real Smooth (Cooper Raiff)
U.S. Documentary Competition – Navalny (Daniel Roher)
World Cinema Dramatic Competition – Girl Picture (Alli Haapasalo)
World Cinema Documentary Competition – The Territory (Alex Pritz)
NEXT – Framing Agnes (Chase Joynt)
- BERLIN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2022
Golden Bear: Alcarràs by Carla Simón
Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize: The Novelist's Film by Hong Sang-soo
Silver Bear Jury Prize: Robe of Gems by Natalia López Gallardo
Silver Bear for Best Director: Claire Denis for Both Sides of the Blade
Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance: Meltem Kaptan for Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush
Silver Bear for Best Supporting Performance: Laura Basuki for Before, Now & Then
Silver Bear for Best Screenplay: Laila Stieler for Rabiye Kurnaz vs. George W. Bush
Silver Bear for Outstanding Artistic Contribution: Rithy Panh and Sarit Mang for Everything Will Be Ok
Special Mention: A Piece of Sky by Michael Koch
- 2022 SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST (SXSW) FILM FESTIVAL
Narrative Feature Competition - Audience Award Winner: I Love My Dad
Documentary Feature Competition - Audience Award Winner: Bad Axe
Narrative Spotlight - Audience Award Winner: Pretty Problems
Documentary Spotlight - Audience Award Winner: We Are Not Ghouls
Headliners - Audience Award Winner: Atlanta
Visions - Audience Award Winner: Shadow
Midnighters - Audience Award Winner: Bitch Ass
Global - Audience Award Winner: Without Prescription
- CANNES FILM FESTIVAL 2022
Palme d'Or: Triangle of Sadness by Ruben Östlund
Grand Prix: Close by Lukas Dhont & Stars at Noon by Claire Denis
Best Director: Park Chan-wook for Decision to Leave
Best Actress: Zar Amir Ebrahimi for Holy Spider
Best Actor: Song Kang-ho for Broker
Best Screenplay: Tarik Saleh for Boy from Heaven
Jury Prize: EO by Jerzy Skolimowski & The Eight Mountains by Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch
Un Certain Regard Award: The Worst Ones by Lise Akoka & Romane Gueret
Un Certain Regard Jury Prize: Joyland by Saim Sadiq
Un Certain Regard Best Director: Alexandru Belc for Metronom
Un Certain Regard Best Performance Prize: Vicky Krieps in Corsage & Adam Bessa in Harka
Un Certain Regard Best Screenplay Prize: Mediterranean Fever by Maha Haj
Un Certain Regard Coup de cœur Prize: Rodeo by Lola Quivoron
Honorary Palme d'Or:
* Forest Whitaker
* Tom Cruise
- VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2022
Golden Lion: All the Beauty and the Bloodshed by Laura Poitras
Grand Jury Prize: Saint Omer by Alice Diop
Silver Lion: Luca Guadagnino for Bones & All
Volpi Cup for Best Actress: Cate Blanchett for Tár
Volpi Cup for Best Actor: Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin
Golden Osella for Best Screenplay: The Banshees of Inisherin by Martin McDonagh
Special Jury Prize: No Bears by Jafar Panahi
Marcello Mastroianni Award: Taylor Russell for Bones & All
- TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2022
People's Choice Award: The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg
People's Choice Award, First Runner Up: Women Talking, Sarah Polley
People's Choice Award, Second Runner Up: Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Rian Johnson
People's Choice Award: Documentaries: Black Ice, Hubert Davis
Documentary, First Runner Up: Maya and the Wave, Stephanie Johnes
Documentary, Second Runner Up: 752 Is Not a Number, Babak Payami
People's Choice Award: Midnight Madness: Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, Eric Appel
Midnight Madness, First Runner Up: Pearl, Ti West
Midnight Madness, Second Runner Up: The Blackening, Tim Story
Platform Prize: Riceboy Sleeps, Anthony Shim
ANALYSIS:
TIFF is a great award precursor when it comes to Best Picture - the People's Choice Award winner has always been nominated for the Oscars top category since 2009 when Precious won, with the only exception being 2011's Where Do We Go Now?. So, it means The Fabelmans looks safe and strong for a Best Picture run (and Women Talking and Glass Onion also score some precious buzz points thanks to being runner-ups here). A note about Pearl, which got the "2nd place" for the Midnight Madness award and I believe it can be a huge awards vehicle for its star - Mia Goth - coming critics prizes season!
Unlike last year, I don't see the 2022 Sundance champion (Nanny) going anywhere in the awards season in terms of Best Picture (remember last year's Sundance and Best Picture winner was CODA), despite being picked by Amazon. Anna Diop does stand a chance for some indie prizes and critics awards in the Best Actress category, but I guess that will be it...! In fact, I believe the big Sundance player might well be Cha Cha Real Smooth - the beloved small indie has been promoted ever since Apple took it under its wing and while I don't see it cracking the top category at the Oscars, it might well land a Best Original Screenplay nomination and be a Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Awards hit. Also, you should pay atention to Girl Picture, which won the Audience Award for World Cinema Dramatic and it was picked as Finland's submission for Best International Film!
Speaking of Best International Film submissions... Spain's choice was Alcarrás, the winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin International Film Festival - a critically acclaimed drama about a family standing against the capitalist interests of installing a big solar panel unit in agriculture area - and it had solid box-office numbers upon its release (both in Spain and internationally), so it sure is a major contender! Also from Berlin, there's Claire Denis' Both Sides of the Blade which earned Denis the prize for Best Directing and it earned the great Juliette Binoche some rave reviews... IFC took it, but there's little awards buzz outside France, unfortunately. Same fate for SXSW champion I Love My Dad, which took some good reviews, specially for Patton Oswalt, but made little money on the box-office and the title was completely erased from my mind until this very moment I am writing this piece.
The most interesting film festival this year: Cannes Film Festival. The Palme d'Or winner was Triangle of Sadness by Ruben Östlund, a satyre that's a love-or-hate-it movie which was picked by NEON (which is able to land strong award campaigns for this kind of more specific cinema). Another contender is the legendary Park Chan-wook, who won Best Director for Decision to Leave: a filmmaker which is long overdue for some widespread international recognition, he has gotten his first film to be selected as Sotuh Korea's Best International Film entry, which increases its Oscar chances by a mile. After great movies like Oldboy and the exquisite The Handmaiden (I still scratch my head when I remember this one was completely overlooked by the Academy back in the 2016/17 awards season), I sense a "it's time" vibe around the success of Decision to Leave - plus, the movie displays plenty of directorial craft and signature stylish elements of Chan-wook's talents, so it's a near-perfect movie to land him a Best Director nod. Cannes also showed the Austria's Internatioanl Film pick (Corsage, starring Vicky Krieps who won the Un Certain Regard Best Performance Prize) and Sweden's (Boy From Heaven which took home Best Screenplay). Shame Holy Spider was not picked neither from Denmark, Sweden, Germany or France, because the reception was quite interesting and it could be a substancial title these times.
Finally, Venice Film Festival played it safe, very safe and very Americanized. For an international film festival it was a shame it had so many English-speaking titles and it awarded so many English-speaking titles. Of course I will never contest Cate Blanchett getting honoured with such a prestigious prize like the Volpi Cup for Best Actress thanks to her raved performance in Tár (which put her in the lead of the Best Actress Oscar race), but from the 8 main categories, 5 were won by "Hollywood productions" - Tár, The Banshees of Inisherin and Bones & All with the later two double winning by picking prizes in two different categories each. It puts Inisherin in Oscar heights and creates the foundation for Oscar hopes for the horror/romantic flick by Luca Guadagnino.
BTW!!!! Have you noted that Tom Cruise won an Honorary Palme d'Or at Cannes Film Festival? It seems he's not canceled anymore and considering the massive success of Top Gun: Maverick (both critically and commercially) maybe we will heard his name more often during the awards season that we (or at least "I") was expecting!
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