awards

Okay, so it's taken a year-and-a-half, but the photos from 2007's 13th Annual Chlotrudis Awards Ceremony featuring Don McKellar and Tracy Wright are finally up on the website. Perhaps we'll even get the pictures from this year's 14th Annual Ceremony up before the calendar year ends! Take a look at the 13th Annual Ceremony here.

A couple of little news stories came out recently. Earlier this year Jessica Yu won Best Documentary for her film PROTAGONIST, which was also nominated in the Best Movie category, but she already has another film in the can, this one a narrative comedy called PING PONG PLAYA. Some of us caught this one in Toronto last year, while still more of us hopefully got a peek at the IFFB this spring. Now the rest of you can enjoy this because IFC has bought the U.S. rights and plan to give the film a limited release this fall.

Outfest 2008 announced its award winners last night, and XXY, their international winner is a must see according to Bruce. The best documentary award goes to SEX POSITIVE, which Jason gave a good review to when it played the IFFB. The oustanding U.S. dramatic feature went to Tom Gustafson's WERE THE WORLD MINE, recounting an all-boys production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.' Scot enjoyed WERE THE WORLD MINE, but I found it to be pretty disappointing, with a pretty bland and uninteresting protagonist. Just goes to show, your mileage may vary!

Peter Keough, our pal from the Boston Phoenix, had some lovely things to say about our Annual Awards Ceremony earlier this week on his blog, Outside the Frame. (And no, it was not an April Fool's Joke.) Chlotrudis member TC also commented on the Awards at the IndieFilmSpotlight on his Popcorn N Roses website.

It's the day before the 14th Annual Chlotrudis Awards, and aside from waking up earlier than I'd hoped, I'm strangely calm about the whole affair. (Okay, maybe I'm still a little concerned about the two musical numbers which will have final rehearsals tomorrow afternoon before the show.) Perhaps now having done this for nine years (publicly) things just move pretty smoothly. The voting is done (for the most part) and we've got our winners. The speeches are written, the multi-media is wrapped up, and the guests will start arriving today.

I'm very excited about our Career-so-far Award winner this year. One of the joys of honoring a deserving and often under-appreciated actor or filmmaker at the Awards is in preparation for their arrival I go through their body of work and get reminded of the reasons we are honoring them in the first place. Such was the case with this year's guest, Alberta Watson. I knew Alberta Watson was a good choice for this year's award just from the several films that immediately sprang to mind when we considered her. What I discovered was those films were just a small sampling of the terrific work this actress has shared with us over the years. Alberta enjoys an extensive film and television career, and she seems like she's going to be a lot of fun as well. You can find out for yourself by joining us tomorrow night at the Ceremony.

So I hope to see many of you local readers at the Brattle Theatre tomorrow, Sunday, March 30, 5 p.m. Chlotrudis Awards is a decidedly unique experience, one that most movie buffs know not to miss. Tickets are $20/$15 for members of the Brattle or Chlotrudis. Hope to see you there!

Fourteen years ago, Chlotrudis President Michael Colford got tired of listening to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences dictate the apparently limited notion of what is good in film during a given year and started the Chlotrudis Awards to honor independent film. Now, for reasons not all that dissimilar, Chlotrudis Award-winning direction A.J. Schnack has followed suit, developing with IndiePix a new award for non-fiction films.

Back in late November, after the Academy announced its short list of documentaries for Awards consideration, A.J. expressed his dismay at its treatment of docs. A.J. had been reporting, sometimes controversially, over the past year plus about the quixotic and confusing rule-changing the Academy had been engaging in with regard to documentaries' requirements for award eligibility. Apparently he has had enough.

A.J. sought out online independent film distributor IndiePix, and a group of North American film festival programmers to launch a new nonfiction filmmaking awards event, set for March 18, 2008 at IFC Center in New York City. Awards will be given in eight categories including Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction Filmmaking, International Feature, Debut Feature, Direction, Production, Editing, Cinematography, and Graphics and Animation. I have no idea how long this idea has been kicking around in A.J.'s head, but he clearly pulled this together so quickly that the passion and commitment from those involved is clear.

As the key organizer, A.J. held his 2007 film KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON from consideration, but the group announced its own short list yesterday:

BILLY THE KID
DEEP WATER
THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK
GHOSTS OF CITE SOLEIL
IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON
INTO GREAT SILENCE
LAKE OF FIRE
MANDA BALA
MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES
THE MONASTERY
NO END IN SIGHT
SICKO
TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE
THE UNFORSEEN
ZOO

So welcome, A.J. to the awards milieu! It's great to see the Academy, in all of its shortcomings, inspiring yet another Awards Ceremony. Find out who Chlotrudis nominates in the Best Documentary category in just over two weeks.

Today the Boston Society of Film Critics announced their awards for 2007. Awards season has begun with a vengeance, with announcements for the Independent Spirit Awards, National Board of Review Awards, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association already released, and the Golden Globe nominees coming next Thursday. Here in Boston, our critics followed the lead of the NBR by selecting the Coen Brothers' NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN as their top film of the year. I guess the most surprising thing for me here is the hometown allegiance to GONE BABY GONE, and more particularly, Ben Affleck. I haven't seen the film, so I probably shouldn't comment, but I find it hard to believe (from what I've heard) that he's deserving of the Best New Filmmaker Award. Here's the complete list:

Best Picture

NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Best Actor

Frank Langella for STARTING OUT IN THE EVENING

Best Actress

Marion Cotillard for LA VIE EN ROSE

Best Supporting Actor

Javier Bardem for NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN

Best Supporting Actress

Amy Ryan for GONE BABY GONE

Best Director

Julian Schnabel for THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

Best Screenplay

Brad Bird for RATATOUILLE

Best Cinematography

Janusz Kaminski for THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

Best Documentary

CRAZY LOVE

Best Foreign-Language Film

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

Best New Filmmaker

Ben Affleck for GONE BABY GONE

Best Ensemble Cast

BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOU'RE DEAD

The Boston Society of Film Critics is a group of 18 film writers who publish in the Boston area, including several friends of Chlotrudis including Ty Burr, Peter Keough, Loren King, Wesley Morris, and Gerry Peary. I wonder if their meeting today was as fun and/or contentious as our upcoming Chlotrudis Awards Nominating Committee Meeting which will take place on Saturday, January 19.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences announced its Shortlist for the Oscars Documentary category yesterday, and much of the film blogging world has been reacting. A.J. Schnack, documentary filmmaker and Chlotrudis Advisory Council member, whose first feature doc, GIGANTIC: A TALE OF TWO JOHNS was the Chlotrudis Award for Best Documentary, and whose latest work, KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON is enjoying a theatrical run right now, shares his thoughts on the Academy's selections in an insightful post over at his blog, All These Wonderful Things. Check it out.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Apicatpong "Joe" Weeasethakul's new film SYNDROMES AND A CENTURY. Apparently there's quite a story brewing around this film by the director of Buried Treasure nominee TROPICAL MALADY. After Thailand's Censorship Board demanded Joe cut four "sensitive scenes" from his film, he decided not to release the film in his home country unless the laws were changed to allow it to be screened in its intended form. Joe has started a petition of have those laws changed called the "Free Thai Cinema Movement" where he says, ""We're petitioning not only for a just decision for Syndromes and a Century, but also for a long-needed modernization of Thai legislation concerning movie censorship." GreenCine Daily reports that the movement is receiving some serious backing from political and cultural heavyweights. Chlotrudis members, especially those that voted for this year's Best Documentary winner THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED, should take a look at the petition and consider signing it. I did.

Incidentally, according to Limitless Cinema, the four "sensitive scenes" that the Thai Censorship Board demanded cut showed:

1. a young monk playing a guitar
2. a group of doctors drinking whisky in a hospital basement
3. a doctor kissing his girlfriend in a hospital locker room
4. two monks playing with a radio-controlled flying saucer

Now don't you really want to sign the petition?

Those Danes and their rules. Most film enthusiasts are familiar with the Dogme95 collective, which has spawned some remarkable films such as Thomas Vinterberg's THE CELEBRATION; Lars Von Trier's THE IDIOTS; Søren Kragh-Jacobsen's MIFUNE; Lone Scherfig's ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS; and Susanne Bier's OPEN HEARTS. Now after a conversation with Lars Von Trier, directors Lone Scherfig and Anders Thomas Jensen (whose film ADAM'S APPLES we are going to see Monday night) have come up with a new concept called The Advance Party. The Advance Party is the banner for films incorporating the characters originated by Scherfig and Jensen after Lars von Trier had set the challenge of putting the same actors playing the same characters into different films authored by different directors. It was originated in 2002 by the Glasgow Film Office who suggested to Scottish Production Company Sigma Films that they persuade theirs partners at Zentropa (the Danish Production Company responsible for many Dogme95 films) to collaborate on a series of films by emerging directors.

The rules are as follows:

• The scripts can take their starting point in one or more characters or they may be subjected to an external drama. The characters can also participate in a form that is governed primarily by neither characters nor plot.
• The films take place in Scotland but apart from that the writers are free to place them anywhere according to geography, social setting or ethnic background. Their back-stories can be expanded, family relations can be created between them, they can be given habits good or bad, and secondary characters can be added if it is proper for the individual film.
• The interpersonal relationships of the characters differ from film to film and they may be weighted differently as major or minor characters.
• The development of the characters in each story or genre does not affect the other scripts.
• All of the characters must appear in all of the films.
• The various parts will be cast with the same actors in the same parts in all of the films.

Less technical and more character-driven than Dogme95, but still a spur to creativity by its limitations, The Advance Party first brings to mind the self-imposed structure of Chlotrudis Award multiple winner THE TRILOGY by Belgian director Lucas Belvaux, where three films, in different genres, about the same characters were filmed and released at the same time. THE TRILOGY won four Chlotrudis Awards in 1995 including Best Cast, Best Original Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Movie (for which it tied with SPRING, SUMMER, FALL, WINTER... AND SPRING.)

The first of the Advance Party's films is Andrea Arnold's RED ROAD, which won the Jury Prize at Cannes last year. In RED ROAD, Jackie (Kate Dickie) works as a CCTV operator. Each day she watches over a small part of the world, protecting the people living their lives under her gaze. One day a man appears on her monitor, a man she thought she would never see again, a man she never wanted to see again. Now she has no choice, she is compelled to confront him. RED ROAD has already drawn comparisons to REAR WINDOW and Michael Haneke's Chlotrudis Awards winning CACHE.

In an interview with Filmmaker Magazine earlier this week, writer/director Arnold discusses The Advance Party, and the making of RED ROAD. Chlotrudis Board Member Bruce Kingsley caught RED ROAD earlier this year at the Miami International Film Festival, where it won Best Film. RED ROAD also features as one of its stars, Natalie Press, who was nominated for a Best Actress Chlotrudis Award for MY SUMMER OF LOVE. All of this is just to say that I'm very intrigued and getting excited about RED ROAD'S release, and it will be interesting to see where the other two participating directors (Morag Mckinnon and Mikkel Norsgaard) take these characters. It's the first time in several months that I have been intrigued and excited by an upcoming release that I'd never heard of before.

Variety reports that Cormac McCarthy's chilling, post-apocalyptic tale, The Road will be adapted for the big screen by screenwriter Joe Penhall (who penned the movie version of Ian McEwan's Enduring Love to mixed results. Australian director Joe Hillcoat, who recently helmed multiple Chlotrudis-nominee THE PROPOSITION, will direct. That's going to be one chilling movie... I just hope they don't go the full-out zombie route. The terror of McCarthy's book comes largely from the isolation surrounding the main characters, and the potential danger of discovery. It might be difficult to successfully translate to the big screen. I can see it working in Hillcoat's hands as long as he mixes in a little restraint. It's really a character piece and a road movie; I'd hate to see it turned into a horror flick. We'll see.