My good news from Bravo!FACT

I was the recipient of some good news earlier today. I found out that I was approved for a grant from one of the private granting agencies in Canada, Bravo!FACT. They are one of the few remaining resources in Canada for filmmakers as the government and broadcaster funds are starting to dry up. I have been fortunate to receive two grants from them before, and they have been exceptionally supportive and helpful in my own personal artistic development. This time, I’ll be directing a project called Notes From the Kuerti Keyboard in collaboration with producer Katarina Soukup of Catbird Productions and Canada’s foremost pianist, Anton Kuerti.

Bravo!FACT is a unique program offered by the broadcaster Bravo! (not affiliated with the American network Bravo) which was part of the City-TV family and has since been bought out by CTVglobemedia. They offer to fund a portion of the budget of short film and video projects that are a maximum of six minutes in length. They have 4 grant deadlines every year, usually just before the change of seasons. The next deadline is coming soon on March 13, 2010. You can find out more about them at their website http://www.bravofact.com/

Unfortunately, because of its success it has become an extremely competitive program. The following is an updated list of some tips for filmmakers thinking of applying for this program. Many of these tips are valid for any other application process too.

Awards News: Genie nominations and VES Awards

Nominees for the 30th Annual Genie Awards were announced at a press conference on Monday, March 1 at the Sutton Place Hotel in Toronto. The Genies are given by the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television in recognition of the best in Canadian film. Leading the field with 11 nominations is the Quebec film Polytechnique, which was one of my top 10 films of the past year.  Its nominations included Best Picture and Best Director for Denis Villeneuve.  Followed closely behind with 10 nominations was Nurse.Fighter.Boy by Charles Officer. Other leading nominees were the Inuit story Before Tomorrow by Marie-Hélène Cousineau and Madeline Piujuq Ivalu (9 nominations); Grande Ourse: La clé des possibles (The Master Key) (8 nominations); and Fifty Dead Men Walking (7 nominations).The ACCT will give out the Genie Awards on April 12 in Toronto.

On Sunday February 28, Avatar earned six Visual Effects Society Awards at the eighth annual VES Awards. In addition to the top prize for visual effects in a visual effects driven feature, Avatar also won best single visual effect of the year, outstanding character animation in a live-action feature, outstanding matte paintings, outstanding models and miniatures, and outstanding created environment. In addition, Avatar director James Cameron was presented with the VES Lifetime Achievement Award. Pixar and Disney Animation Studios president Ed Catmull received the George Melies Award for significant and lasting contribution to the art and science of the visual effects industry. The year's animated feature frontrunner Up was the winner of three awards.

The following are the nominees for the Genie awards, and the VES Award winners.

Oscar Race: More on the Weinsteins, LA Times and dirty campaigning

It seems the smear campaigning that continues in the L.A. Times (first against Up in the Air and now The Hurt Locker) has since spread to the other news outlets. While the L.A. Times focus was the Nicholas Chartier email scandal, Newsweek and Associated Press put out articles by war experts who dislike The Hurt Locker because it's supposedly disrespectful and inaccurate. Then the L.A. Times picked up on it themselves with a front-page story 'The Hurt Locker' sets off conflict, followed by others such as 'The Hurt Locker' debate: accuracy vs. entertainment. I can't help but notice that none of them spoke to the "accuracy" of the Weinsteins' Inglourious Basterds.

This reminds me of Norm Jewison who spoke recently about how The Hurricane was a strong contender in the Oscar race until a New York Times article smeared the film. Suspciously-timed articles have a habit of appearing during Academy's voting period that cast negative light on Oscar frontrunners, such as the accusations of anti-Semitism against A Beautiful Mind, the release of grand jury testimony from Polanski's 1977 sexual assault case when The Pianist was up against Gangs of New York, and accusations of exploitation against Slumdog Millionaire. Curiously, none of these articles ever seems to critique a Weinstein movie. Hmmmm.

The L.A. Times has become a de facto cheerleader for the Weinsteins' Inglourious Basterds, with Patrick Goldstein providing the voice of reason. Certainly none of these smears have come from the Avatar camp. James Cameron maintains an excellent relationship with his ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow and made it a condition of promoting Avatar that it would not be at the expense of The Hurt Locker.

Awards News: ASC (Cinematography) and CAS (Sound Mixing) Awards

On Saturday, Cinematographer Christian Berger of Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon) was a surprise winner of the 24th Annual American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) Outstanding Achievement Awards.  It's only the second time a foreign film has won the award, after 2004's Un long dimanche de fiançailles (A Very Long Engagement).  Morgan Freeman was given the Board of Governors Award, Caleb Deschanel received the ASC Lifetime Achievement Award, and Chris Menges a took the ASC International Award.

The Cinema Audio Society (CAS) also held its Awards ceremony on Saturday night.  The Hurt Locker pulled out a surprise win over Avatar which won two major awards at the Golden Reel Awards for sound editors.  The other nominees were District 9, Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The CAS recognizes sound mixers, who are responsible for sculpting and blending the sound after the sound editors have created and/or selected all of the sounds.

The following are complete lists of winners.

Film Review – The Crazies

Writer: Scott Kosar, Ray Wright; based on George Romero's 1973 original
Director: Breck Eisner
Producer: Michael Aguilar, Rob Cowan, Dean Georgaris
Cast: Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Joe Anderson
Zombie horror, 101 minutes

This remake of a 1973 George Romero film has an unusual pedigree. It’s made by Participant Media, which was founded by eBay’s first president Jeffrey Skoll. Participant’s mission is to make politically relevant films, and they’re best known for the Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth about Al Gore and climate change. Breck Eisner is the film’s director. He is the son of former-Disney boss Michael Eisner, and was the director of the atrocious Matthew McConaughey film Sahara.

As with many of Romero’s original zombie movies, the political overtones are noticeable but discreet. I expect that most viewers will be oblivious to the interpretive possibilities, and just enjoy it as a good example of the genre. The plot will be familiar to not only zombie fans, but to anyone who saw The Simpsons Movie. Basically, man-made event causes the townsfolk of Ogden Marsh to become crazed homicidal maniacs. So technically, they are not zombies since they were never dead. But they move, act, kill and infect humans the same way, so for all intents and purposes that's what they are.

Awards News: César Awards, NAACP Image Awards and CDG Awards

Un prophète (A Prophet) was the big winner on Saturday, February 27 at the 35th annual César Awards in Paris. It won nine of its thirteen nominations including Best Film, Best Director and two awards for its breakout star Tahar Rahim - Best Actor and Breakthrough Actor. Un prophète is France's nominee for the Best Foreign-Language Film Academy Award, and receives its Toronto release on March 5, 2010. Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino was a surprise winner in the Foreign Film category, beating out Avatar, Milk, Slumdog Millionaire, Panique au village (A Town Called Panic), Palme d'Or winner Das Weisse Band (The White Ribbon), and Canada's J’ai tué ma mere (I Killed My Mother).

On Friday night, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) hosted their Image Awards. Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire was the night's big winner, taking six trophies including Best Motion Picture and Best Independent Motion Picture. There was a moment of embarrassment when director Lee Daniels said, "No one in Hollywood told me they wanted to see a movie about a 350lb black girl who had HIV" before quickly correcting himself. "She's not 350lbs, Gabby," referring to the film's star Gabourey Sidibe. He awkwardly explained that was the description from the book.

On Thursday, the Costume Designers Guild (CDG) gave out their awards to film and television wardrobe artists. They recognize three categories in the area of film: contemporary, period and fantasy. These were won by Doug Hall (Crazy Heart), Sandy Powell (The Young Victoria), Monique Prudhomme (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus) respectively. Sandy Powell also received a Career Achievement Award, having won Oscars for Shakespeare in Love and The Aviator.

Here are complete lists of winners for the César, NAACP Image, and CDG Awards.

Oscar Race: Mo'Nique Doesn't Deserve the Best Supporting Actress Award

This is the year that the Academy gets everything wrong in the acting categories. 

It won’t be quite so bad on the men’s side.  Jeff Bridges will win for his work in Crazy Heart and he is worthy.  Personally I think George Clooney’s performance was better in a better film Up in the Air.  But he has already won and Jeff Bridges hasn’t so I’m okay with that.  Chris Waltz will win for his outstanding turn in Inglourious Basterds.  His role was really the lead, however, and so he has an unfair advantage over his fellow nominees.  Since Waltz didn’t support anyone but rather stole the movie and made the villain far and away the most interesting thing, I’d probably give it to Woody Harrelson or Christopher Plummer.

But it’s especially the women’s categories that will be a travesty.  There’s no way that Sandra Bullock is remotely in the same league as Meryl Streep.  Her work in The Blind Side is somewhat better than her Razzie-nominated work in All About Steve or equally lame The Proposal.  Still, all she does is go from being a deeply devout and concerned Christian to … well, a deeply devout and concerned Christian.  Meryl Streep is the greatest actor of her generation, male or female.  Unfortunately, Hollywood takes her for granted.  So while she gets nominated often – a record 16 times – she hasn’t won since 1982 (Sophie’s Choice).  Her other Oscar was for supporting work in Kramer vs. Kramer, so Hillary Swank has more Best Actress awards.  No one in their right mind believes that Swank is superior to Streep.

Okay then, what about Mo'Nique in Precious?

Film Review – La Nana (The Maid)

Writer: Sebastián Silva, Pedro Peirano
Director: Sebastián Silva
Cast: Catalina Saavedra, Claudia Celedón, Alejandro Goic, Andrea García-Huidobro, Mariana Loyola
Indie drama, 94 Minutes
Spanish w/ English Subtitles

With his sophomore film La Nana (The Maid), director/co-writer Sebastián Silva paints a fascinating character study of Raquel, an old maid in both senses of the term.  Drawing on memories of his family’s own domestic help, his portrayal doesn’t sentimentalize or trivialize the workers but creates complex and multi-dimensional characters.

Raquel (Catalina Saavedra) is a frumpy, likeable and hardworking maid, but has a definite dark side.  She has helped the Valdez family in Chile for 23 years and is almost like family, yet still feels distant from them.  She has to be cajoled into joining them to celebrate her own birthday.  She is diligent, but overworked to the point of exhaustion and suffers headaches and dizzy spells.  When the mother Pilar (Claudia Celedón) suggests that the family hire a second maid, she does everything she can to sabotage her or anyone else who might come along. 

Oscar race: The Hurt Locker's Continuing Journey to Oscar Triumph

Not to toot my own horn but....

At the beginning of the month, just four days after the Oscar nominees were announced, I declared that The Hurt Locker was going to win both Best Director and Best Picture.  Lately, everyone else seems to be jumping on the bandwagon now that it has won most of the big prizes this month, including ACE, WGA, DGA, PGA, and this past weekend’s BAFTA Awards.  Some writers eventually caught on to my observation that the new preferential voting process would benefit The Hurt Locker, such as Hendrik Hertzberg’s New Yorker article fully a week-and-a-half after mine.  I hear that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I guess I can take some satisfaction seeing others finally catching up.

The only thing that could derail them now isn’t the brilliance of one of the Weinsteins, but the foolishness of one of The Hurt Locker’s producers, Nicholas Chartier.  He sent out an idiotic email last Friday that is in contravention of the new rules of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), introduced in 2004 to prevent the badmouthing and negative campaigning that were so often part of the Oscar race.  Academy regulations state that "ads, mailings, Web sites or any other forms of communication that attempt to promote a particular film or achievement by casting a negative or derogatory light on a competing film or achievement are not permitted. In particular, any tactic that singles out “the competition” by name or title is expressly forbidden."  Although he didn’t mention a rival by name, it’s clear he’s speaking of Avatar by referring to “a $500M film.”

Here’s the text of his email, typos included:

Second look - J’ai tué ma mere (I Killed My Mother)

Writer/director: Xavier Dolan
Cast: Xavier Dolan, Anne Dorval
Gay coming-of-age drama, 96 minutes

In Toronto theatres now, J’ai tué ma mere (I Killed My Mother) returns to Montreal Thursday for the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois. It is indeed an impressive debut film by Montrealer Xavier Dolan.

Dolan took Cannes by storm last year, winning three awards: the Art Cinema Award (C.I.C.A.E.), Prix Regards Jeune and the SACD (Societe des auteurs et compositeurs dramatiques) Prize at the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar. It went on to win two awards at the Lumiere Awards in France, and numerous awards in Festivals as far-flung as Bangkok, Reykjavik and Zabreb. It was also named to Canada’s Top Ten by the Toronto International Film Festival, and was Canada’s submission to the Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Film Category. It received 5 Jutra Award nominations, 4 for Dolan himself.

All of this praise is mostly justified. It is quite a strong first feature by a precocious filmmaker, at only 20 years of age. He not only wrote and directed the film, but produced it and starred in it as well. Could he really be the next Orson Welles? Is J’ai tué ma mere another Citizen Kane?

Film Review - Last Train Home

Writer/director: Lixin Fan
Documentary, 90 minutes

Some thirty years after China’s “Reforms and Opening up” to the outside world, its coastal cities are overrun with factories ready to supply the West’s insatiable need for cheap goods. Because of crushing poverty in the interior rural areas, over 130 million people have flooded to these cities for the work, however low-paying and grueling. They end up living in the factories, and can only return home once a year to celebrate the Chinese New Year and Spring Festival with their families. But with millions all trying to take the same trains home at the same time, the result is a crush of pandemonium.

Last Train Home is a remarkable look at the effects of globalization on China in general and on one family in particular, and resonates on many levels both large and small. It is both epic and intimate. It takes us through many cities and regions, often contrasting the beautiful, pristine but impoverished countryside with the smog-choked yet affluent urban centres. Crowds pack the factories and stream into trains by the thousands and thousands. But it is through the eyes of the Zhangs that we see how difficult the work and journey home can be, and how they arrive home only to find that their children are strangers to them.

Awards News: 2010 Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Awards nominees

The Writers Guild of Canada (WGC) announced the nominees for their 2010 Screenwriting Awards on Monday. The five nominees in the Feature Film category  were High Life, A Shine of Rainbows, The Trotsky, Love and Savagery and Crackie.

Of these films High Life and The Trotsky are comedies.  The others have an Irish/ Newfoundland leaning.  A Shine of Rainbows is set in Ireland while Crackie is set in Newfoundland.  Love and Savagery is set in both Ireland and Newfoundland.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony on Monday, April 19, at Maro in Liberty Village, Toronto.  The ceremony will be hosted by Canadian Comedy Award-winning Debra DiGiovanni, and she will write the awards show with fellow Canadian Comedy Award-winning writers Steven and Daniel Shehori.

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Conplete list of 2010 Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Awards nominees

Film Review - Fish Tank

Writer/director: Andrea Arnold
Cast: Katie Jarvis, Kierston Wareing, Michael Fassbender, Rebecca Griffths
Social Realist drama, 123 minutes

This past year has been a terrific one for women directors. Kathryn Bigelow is only one of the many who had prominent releases. We also saw major films from Nora Ephron (Julie & Julia), Jane Campion (Bright Star), Lone Scherfig (An Education), Karyn Kusama (Jennifer’s Body), Nancy Meyers (It’s Complicated), Drew Barrymore (Whip It), Mira Nair (Amelia), Anne Fontaine (Coco avant Chanel), and many others. This past weekend, Toronto saw the theatrical release of Fish Tank which won the Jury Prize at Cannes and just won Outstanding British film at the BAFTA Awards.

Fish Tank is a compelling coming-of-age drama set in the public housing underbelly of Essex, east of London. Working class folks bark at each other with gusto and scathing profanity. Mia (Katie Jarvis) is a troubled 15-year-old who fights other girls but dreams of becoming a hip-hop dancer like them. She also develops an unhealthy crush on her mother’s new boyfriend Connor (Michael Fassbender).

Film Review - Panique au village (A Town Called Panic)

Writer/director:  Stéphane Aubier, Vincent Patar
Cast: (voice) Stéphane Aubier, Jeanne Balibar, Véronique Dumont, Bruce Ellison, Frédéric Jannin, Bouli Lanners, Vincent Patar
Stop-motion animation comedy, 75 minutes
French, with English subtitles

This has been a very strong year for stop-motion animated films.  Coraline and Fantastic Mr. Fox were hits at the box office, and the sadly neglected Mary and Max was also superb.  Now comes a Belgian film Panique au village (A Town Called Panic).  It was a rare animation film that was invited to the Cannes Film Festival and later played at the Midnight Madness at the Toronto International Film Festival as well.  It's based on a Belgian television series that used plastic children's toys to tell fantastical and hilarious stories.

This delightfully goofy adventure also stars the main characters of Cowboy, Indian and Horse, and has a bizarre plot that takes the three on a wild journey to the centre of the Earth, across an arctic wasteland and to an underwater city of pointy-headed creatures.  But the seemingly drug-induced plot is secondary to the giddy relish that the filmmakers Aubier and Patar take in bringing the characters to life and surprising us with surreal images.

They are also two of the main voice actors, voicing Cowboy (Aubier) and Horse (Patar) and various other characters.  Bruce Ellison provides the voice for Indian and Jeanne Balibar is the voice of Madame Longrée.  They each channel the inner child and make frequent use of hyperactive falsetto voices.

Interview - Day Before Yesterday director Patricia Chica

Yesterday at the Rendez-vous du cinéma québécois in Montreal (a film festival for works by Quebeckers) the Quebec premiere for the very fine short film Day Before Yesterday took place at the Cinémathèque Québécoise as part of a selection of short films.  The film also won the Best Short Drama Award at the Magnolia FIlm Festival this weekend.  The following is my interview with the film's director, Patricia Chica.

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Who and/or what was the initial impetus in getting the ball rolling on this film?

The project was initiated by Sarah Beckett, a very talented screenwriter. She was looking for a director for her short and I was the lucky one selected. I felt a strong connection with Sarah's story and vision. I feel almost like the script was written for me even though it wasn't. What struck me the most from Sarah's concept was the way the narration unfolded: the story is not told in chronological order but like a puzzle in the principal character's mind! I love psychological thrillers and I thought that I could bring the story forward by adding my own visual style and storytelling skills into the mix!

How was your working relationship with Sarah Beckett?

Sarah is a very respectful collaborator both as writer and producer. She gave me a lot of creative freedom and on my side, I tried to be faithful to her vision as well. During pre-production, we were able to have a lot of discussions regarding all of the creative aspects of the film, from casting to visual style, so we both knew what the outcome would be. I'm very proud of the results. It was totally a team effort!