63rd annual Directors Guild of America (DGA) Awards - nominations

The Directors Guild of America have announced their feature film nominees for their 63rd annual DGA Awards. The nominees are Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan), David Fincher (The Social Network), Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech), Christopher Nolan (Inception), and David O. Russell (The Fighter).

The television and commercial nominees will be announced on January, 11, 2011 while the documentary film nominees are announced the following day on January 12. 

These are the first DGA nominations for Aronofsky and Russell. Hooper has been previously nominated for television (John Adams), but this is his first feature film nomination. Christopher Nolan is a previous nominee for Memento in 2001 and The Dark Knight in 2008. David Fincher was previously nominated for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and is a previous winner in the commercial category.

The Coen brothers were a surprise omission. This doesn't bode well for the Oscar hopes of True Grit. The women hopefuls Lisa Cholodenko (The Kids Are All Right) and Debra Granik (Winter's Bone) were also left out.

9th annual Visual Effects Society (VES) Awards - nominees

The Visual Effects Society (VES) announced the nominations for their 9th annual VES Awards earlier today. Leading the motion picture group was Inception with four nominations including the main prize, Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual-Effects Driven Feature Motion Picture. It also received nominations for Outstanding Created Environment, Outstanding Models & Miniatures and Outstanding Compositing.

The other four nominees for Outstanding Visual Effects were Iron Man 2, TRON: Legacy, Alice In Wonderland and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. The nominations for Supporting Visual Effects (for films that aren't driven by effects) went to Green Zone, Salt, Hereafter, Black Swan and Robin Hood. The Outstanding Animation nominations were given to Tangled, How to Train Your Dragon, Toy Story 3, Shrek Forever After and Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole.

In the television section, HBO's Boardwalk Empire led with five nominations including Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Broadcast Program. Other nominees for Supporting Visual Effects were The Walking Dead, Human Target, Undercovers and Lost. The nominations for effects-driven series went to Caprica, No Ordinary Family, V, The Event and Stargate: Universe.

17th annual Star Screen Awards (India) - winners

The Karbonn Mobiles 17th Annual Star Screen Awards took place on Thursday and Udaan was named Best Film, while its director Vikramaditya Motwane won Best Director. Motwane’s debut film Udaan had the most  nominations going into the night with 14. Nonetheless, its victories were somewhat surprising as it was a low-budget production with no known stars. It also won Best Actor in a Negative Role (Ronit Roy) and Best Child Actor (Ayaan Barodia).

Two other low-budget productions Ishqiya and Band Baaja Baraat also picked up four awards each.

Abhinav Singh Kashyap’s big blockbuster hit Dabangg won six awards, though it wasn't even nominated for Best Film or Best Director. It won for Best Actor (Salman Khan), Best New Talent In Music (Mamta Sharma), Most Promising Newcomer - Female (Sonakshi Sinha), Best Choreography (Farah Khan) and Best Action (Master Vijayan), and tied for Best Music (Sajid Wajid).

45th National Society of Film Critics Awards - winners

The National Society of Film Critics held its annual meeting at Sardi's restaurant in New York City and 46 of the society's 61 members voted for their 2010 awards. As with many other critics' groups, they threw their support behind The Social Network, awarding it Best Picture, Best Director (David Fincher), Best Actor (Jesse Eisenberg) and Best Screenplay (Aaron Sorkin).

The surprising choice for Best Actress was Giovanna Mezzogiorno from the Italian film Vincere. The Supporting acting awards went to Geoffrey Rush (The King’s Speech) and Olivia Williams (The Ghost Writer).

Although ineligible for the Academy Awards because it aired on French television as a mini-series, Carlos took the award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Best Nonfiction Film prize went to Inside Job.

10 scientific and technical achievement Academy Award honourees

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) revealed the 10 achievements to be honoured this year with scientific and technical awards. The 10 achievements are represented by 22 individuals. They will receive their awards February 12, 2011 at an awards ceremony held at the Beverly Wilshire in Los Angeles.

Portions of this ceremony will be shown in the Feb. 27, 2011 broadcast of the Oscar ceremony.

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10 SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL ACHIEVEMENTS TO BE HONORED WITH ACADEMY AWARDS

Beverly Hills, CA - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today announced that 10 scientific and technical achievements represented by 22 individual award recipients will be honored at its annual Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation at the Beverly Wilshire on Saturday, February 12, 2011.

Unlike other Academy Awards to be presented this year, achievements receiving Scientific and Technical Awards need not have been developed and introduced during 2010.  Rather, the achievements must demonstrate a proven record of contributing significant value to the process of making motion pictures.

BAFTA's Orange British Academy Film Awards in 2011 – Longlist

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) released the longlist for their 2011 Orange British Academy Film Awards this morning. In the lead with 15 entries each are The King's Speech and Black Swan. Not far behind, Inception and Made in Dagenham picked up 14 mentions each. The Social Network received 13 mentions, while Alice in Wonderland, Shutter Island, The Fighter and True Grit each picked up 12. 127 Hours, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Town each received eleven mentions.

The longlist narrows the contenders from the 207 films entered to 15 in each category from the first round of voting (which closed January 5) by over 6300 BAFTA members. The second round of voting, which closes January 18, narrows the list to the eventual five nominees. The winners will be revealed at the awards ceremony on Feb. 13 at London's Royal Opera House.

Interesting omissions include Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek) not being included in either Best Film or Best Director. Blue Valentine, The Ghost and Rabbit Hole also didn't make Best Film, while Debra Granik's Winter's Bone was left out of Best Director.

47th annual Cinema Audio Society (CAS) Awards - nominees

The Cinema Audio Society announced the nominees for the 47th annual CAS Awards for Outstanding Achievement in Sound Mixing for 2010. In the film categories, the nominated mixing teams were for the movies Black Swan, Inception, Shutter Island, The Social Network and True Grit.

The latter two films don't have especially memorable sound, but are considered front-runners in this Awards season. As a result, there may be a bit of a bandwagon effect taking place.

The HBO war-themed miniseries The Pacific almost swept the Television Movies and Miniseries category. It took four of the five available lots, with the fifth one going to another HBO project, the TV movie Temple Grandin.

The nominees for best sound in a TV series were "24," "Boardwalk Empire," "Dexter," "Glee" and "Modern Family."

Call for Submissions: CaribbeanTales 2011 Content Incubator

The CaribbeanTales Annual Film Festival started in 2006 as a Toronto to celebrate the many talents from the Islands. Last year, founder Frances-Anne Solomon launched CaribbeanTales Worldwide Distribution n Barbados as a way of “taking Caribbean films to the world.”

CTWD also provides opportunities for professional development to filmmakers. During its Toronto launch during the Toronto International Film Festival, they hosted a Market Development Program for 25 filmmakers. Now they are taking submissions for their Content Incubator program.

8-10 filmmakers will be given the opportunity to develop their projects over 5 days (March 14-20, 2011) at the new Island Inn, Barbados. Projects submitted can be narrative or documentary, film or television.

People's Choice Awards 2011 - winners

Last night, the ceremony for the People's Choice Awards 2011 took place at the Nokia Theatre in downtown Los Angeles. Queen Latifah hosted the event that gives the general public their say in honouring film, television and music stars.  

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse won four awards, taking Favorite Movie, Movie Actress (Kristen Stewart), Drama Movie and On Screen Team (Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner). Iron Man 2 won Favorite Action Movie, Favorite Horror Movie was A Nightmare on Elm Street, while Grown Ups was named Favorite Comedy Movie. 

The only winner that stands a chance at the more serious and important awards ceremonies over the next two months was Toy Story 3 which won for Favorite Family Movie.

Johnny Depp was the winner for Favorite Movie Actor, while Jackie Chan was the surprise winner for Favorite Action Star. Adam Sandler received the prize for Favorite Comedic Star and his award sporting a black eye that he sustained playing a recreational basketball game.

The 2011 USC Scripter Awards - finalists announced

The USC Libraries have announced their finalists for this year's Scripter Awards. They are The Ghost Writer, 127 Hours, The Social Network, True Grit and Winter's Bone.  Both The Ghost Writer and Winter's Bone were deemed ineligible for the WGA Awards in the adapted category

The Scripter Awards are for film adaptations of literary works and given to both the screenwriter and the author of the original work. Though the definition of adaptation has broadened to include newpaper and articles and comic books, the choices this year are all from books. Three are from novels while two are based more-or-less on non-fiction works.

I say more-or-less because no one seems to have noticed that The Social Network isn't a true adaptation. It was written concurrently with the book “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal” and Aaron Sorkin has said that he didn't consult it. Rather he says each wrote his own version of the story, adding “I don’t remember getting written material and didn’t get a look at any of the book until the screenplay was almost finished.”

The 2011 Guldbagge Awards (Sweden) - nominations

The Swedish Film Institute released the names of the nominees for the 2011 Guldbagge Awards. The Guldbagge ('Golden Beetle') Awards, which have been presented since 1964, are chosen by a jury of 34 members to honour the best in Swedish cinema.

The debut film Svinalängorna (Beyond) by Swedish actress Pernilla August leads with eight nominations including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress for Noomi Rapace (best known in North America as the star of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo). August competes against Rapace in the Best Actress race, as she herself was nominated for her turn in Miss Kicki. She is also nominated in the Best Screenplay category as the co-writer of Beyond.

Also nominated for Best Film are I rymden finns inga känslor (Simple Simon) and Babak Najafi's  Sebbe which took the prize for Best Debut Feature at the Berlin Film Festival.  They received four and three nominations, respectively. Till det som är vackert (Pure) also received three nominations.

The nominees for Best Foreign Language Film are Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank, Jessica Hausner's Lourdes, and The Social Network by David Fincher.

14th Annual Wildside Theatre Festival, Jan 4-16, 2011

The 14th Annual Wildside Theatre Festival in Montreal runs from January 4 to 16, and offers Montrealers a chance to sample some of the latest indie theatre productions.

You'll have a chance to see shows such as Best of the Fringe Award-winner Miss Sugarpuss Must Die. It also received four nominations for the 2010 Montreal English Critics Circle Awards and won for Best Costume Design. Miss Sugarpuss Must Die is set in the world of burlesque. Similarly, Neon Nightz: Sex & Salvation in '90s Montreal is about the world of Montreal strip clubs.

Raoul Bhaneja returns with his award-winning performance of Hamlet (solo), in which he plays seventeen parts from Shakespeare's Hamlet all by himself over the course of the two-hour show. He captured the Montreal English Critics Circle Award for Best Visiting Production in 2006.

15th Art Directors Guild (ADG) Awards - nominations

The Art Directors Guild (ADG) announced the nominees competing in its 15th annual Excellence in Production Design Awards for 2010 earlier today. They award nine categories for theatrical motion pictures, television, commercials and music videos. The three categories for feature films are Period Film, Fantasy Film and Contemporary Film.

The Period Film nominees are True Grit, The King's Speech, Shutter Island, Robin Hood and Get Low. For Fantasy Films, the nominations went to Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, Inception, Tron: Legacy and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The nominees for Contemporary Film are Black Swan, The Social Network, The Fighter, The Town, and 127 Hours.

The Television Series nominees are Mad Men, True Blood, The Tudors, 24 and Glee.

Registration now open for the 2011 Doc Challenge, March 3-7

Registration for the 2011 International Documentary Challenge is now open. The International Documentary Challenge is a timed filmmaking competition where filmmakers from around the world have 5 days to make a short non-fiction film (4-7 minutes.) All of the registered participants make their films during the same time period (March 3-7) and are required to ship the movie by the deadline.

The filmmakers must choose between 2 assigned documentary genres (such as Biography, Music, 1st Person, etc.) and are assigned a specific theme (such as "Freedom") that will dictate the content and direction of their film. The top 12 films (determined by a panel of judges) premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival in Toronto (April 28 to May 8, 2011) where the winners are announced.

More than 20 Awards will be given - including the Grand Prize Winner - Best Film of the 2011 International Documentary Challenge. The Best Film winner receives $1,500, $1,500 worth of services from DocuMentors and a glass award. Each of the 12 finalists receives two industry passes to Hot Docs (an $800 value) and an invitation to the official Doc Challenge reception at Hot Docs. 

2011 Writers Guild of America Awards - nominations [UPDATED]

The Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) in Los Angeles and the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE) in New York have announced nominations for outstanding achievement in writing for the screen during 2010.

The nominees for Best Original Screenplay are Black Swan, The Fighter, Inception, The Kids Are All Right and Please Give . For Best Adapted Screenplay, the nominees are 127 Hours, I Love You Phillip Morris, The Social Network, The Town and True Grit.

The Documentary screenplay nominees are Enemies of the People, Freedom Riders, Gasland, Inside Job, The Two Escobars and Who Is Harry Nilsson (And Why Is Everybody Talkin’ About Him)?. Although documentaries are not scripted as such, there is writing in the sense that a person or persons must make detailed character and story choices that greatly influence the making of the film.

Controversially, the WGA only qualified 76 films for consideration in their awards. Excluded from this list were prominent titles such as The King's Speech, Toy Story 3, Another Year, Biutiful, Blue Valentine, The Ghost Writer, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and Winter’s Bone. As a result, the surprise entries I Love You Phillip Morris and Please Give made the cut. Last year, the WGA disqualified An Education and Inglourious Basterds, which then went on to receive Academy Award nominations for their screenplays.