Awardsline

Alejandro Landes has had a busy year. His survivalist saga Monos debuted at Sundance in January where it won a Special Jury Award and was acquired by Neon after its world premiere there. Landes was then signed by UTA and the film went on to play Berlin as well as a host of other festivals, scooping prizes along they…

On the Safdie brothers' Uncut Gems, cinematographer Darius Khondji found himself pulled into an '80s sensibility—a world he was not initially inclined to embrace. A tense Diamond District thriller centered on overly ambitious jeweler Howard Ratner, the mobile, high-contrast film was inspired by postmodern…

This year has brought more evidence to cement Alex Gibney's reputation as the hardest working man in documentary film. His six-part documentary series Why We Hate, executive-produced with Steven Spielberg, debuted on Discovery Channel last month. Earlier this year his documentary The Inventor: Out For Blood in Silicon…

Approached by DreamWorks Animation about the prospect of helming a "Yeti movie," writer/director Jill Culton seized what she saw as both an opportunity and a challenge, "to reinvent and define a mythical creature in a new way for audiences," she says. Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival in September…

Sometimes it is the announcement of an award that is more important than the actual award itself, at least to Oscar campaign strategists who covet landing precursor honors for their contenders as they like to get that information out in order to make Academy members aware these people are already winning stuff, so…

Wrongly-convicted Death Row prisoner Walter McMillian may have tragically lost most of his life to a broken justice system, but McMillian's story lives on in both the memoir of his tireless lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, and now in the film it inspired: Destin Daniel Cretton's Just Mercy. Jamie Foxx plays McMillian—a man…

After two seasons, the fan furore around Big Little Lies shows little sign of waning, with repeated calls for a third go-round of the HBO limited series. One woman with the inside track on whether that will happen is Nicole Kidman, who not only gave an intricately-layered performance as her character Celeste Wright…

Chris Brown was the big winner of last night’s 2019 Soul Train Music Awards, as his song featuring Drake, “No Guidance,” took three awards, including Song of the Year, Best Dance and Best Collaborative performances. Hosted by Tichina Arnold and Tisha Campbell (both of Martin) from Las Vegas, the awards show saw gospel…

It has been 20 years since Edward Norton last directed a movie, and that was the comedy Keeping The Faith. It has also been 20 years since Norton discovered Jonathan Lethem’s novel Motherless Brooklyn and has had it in his head ever since, with the idea that someday it would make a great film. That day is here now…

A column chronicling conversations and events on the awards circuit. ‘Tis the season, and we’re still even two weeks away from Thanksgiving. Usually the holiday parties are held at least until December — but apparently not in Hollywood, where a truncated awards season not only brings mass panic to strategists worrying…

Oscar-nominated A Star Is Born producer Lynette Howell Taylor and Dear White People producer Stephanie Allain will produce the 92nd Academy Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said Friday. It will be the first involvement with the Oscars for both. "The combined producing talents of Lynette and…

Levan Akin is a Swedish-born filmmaker of Georgian descent whose third film, And Then We Danced, is Sweden's Oscar submission for the International Feature race. The Georgian-language film is the first LGBTQ+ movie set in the country and debuted in the Directors' Fortnight section of Cannes earlier this year. When…