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Paris-based company had a high-profile 2021 with titles including ’Compartment No. 6’ and ‘My Sunny Maad’.

Paris-based Totem Films will launch a quartet of first features with 2022 festival hopes at the EFM next week (February 10-17), including directorial debuts by The Happiest Day In The Life Of Olli Mäki co-writer Mikko Myllylahti and Italian actress Jasmine Trinca.

The company’s 2021 slate enjoyed a buzzy festival run, led by Cannes Grand Prix winner Compartment No. 6 as well as Berlinale best documentary winner We, Berlin Competition title Ballad Of A White Cow and My SunnyMaad, which took the jury award at Annecy.

Finnish...

In today’s high-tech world, there are as many ways to make an animated film as there are film genres. Each year’s top animated features span everything from family fare to real-life documentaries and everything in between, and today’s animation directors have as many, or as few, tools at their disposal to tell their stories as they want.

For Sony Pictures Animation’s “The Mitchells vs. the Machines,” a comedy about a dysfunctional family battling a robot apocalypse, directors Mike Rianda and Jeff Rowe saw the irony in using top-notch tools to tell a cautionary tale about technology.

“We were making a movie about technology and the only way we could contact our mom or see our friends was over the computer,” says Rianda of working during the pandemic lockdown. “It’s a wonderful time for animation right now. I would love to see people from all walks of life telling stories.

This marks the fifth year that the entire membership of the academy can take part in the nomination stage of the Animated Feature Oscar race. Previously, only select members of the Short Films and Feature Animation Branch and invited members from the other branches could serve on the committee that decided the nominees. Collectively, the committee tended to favor traditional and stop-motion films over CG fare. (Scroll down for the most up-to-date 2022 Oscars predictions for Best Animated Feature.)

Mandatory attendance at screenings has been dropped and voters who want to be on the nominations committee need only attest to having seen all the contenders at theaters or screenings or by way of the the academy’s streaming site.

The method of determining the nominees has also changed. Gone is the system where voters scored a film from 6 (poor) to 10 (excellent) with only those movies meriting an average mark of at least 7.5 eligible for a nomination.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Thursday revealed the 276 feature films that are eligible for consideration at the 94rd Oscars, which are set to air live March 27 on ABC from the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.

The number is 90 fewer than last year’s 366, but this year’s eligibility period was only 10 months.

To be eligible for Best Picture consideration, films must have submitted a confidential Academy Representation and Inclusion Standards entry as part of the submission requirements. Nominations voting begins January 27 and concludes on February 1. The Oscar nominations will be revealed on Tuesday, February 8.

Today’s news comes about a month after the Academy released its shortlists in the International Film, Documentary Feature, Original Score, Original Song, Makeup & Hairstyling, Visual Effects, Sound and the Live-Action, Documentary and Animated Shorts categories.

Here is the full list of films eligible for Best Picture at the 94rd annual Academy Awards,...

In most Oscar categories, it’s clear what “best” means. Not so the annual animated feature race, in which the ballot presents perhaps the greatest range of any category every year — certainly, in terms of budget, subject matter, artistic style and formal innovation. Where else can you see a pair of superhero movies competing against an ultra-personal Japanese anime and stop-motion Wes Anderson movie, to use 2018 as an example?

Consider this year’s crop: Among the 26 films that qualified, you’ll find everything from a splashy studio hit (“Sing 2”) to a cult-interest Sundance indie (Dash Shaw’s hand-drawn “Cryptozoo”), from a Sony-animated pop-culture phenom (“The Mitchells vs. the Machines”) to a highly targeted, “Heavy Metal”-esque midnight movie (“The Spine of Night”).

Many of the more eccentric submissions will be eliminated in the next phase — including perhaps anime entry “The Laws of the Universe: The Age of Elohim,...

The Golden Globes are on Sunday night, but no one will be able to see it because NBC canceled its broadcast of the ceremony following an avalanche of controversy for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. After much scrutiny, the group announced multiple plans for changes and diversity reforms in its organization. One of the changes proposed was to allow non-English language and animated films to compete in its top categories. However, that change wasn’t put into practice to produce this year’s crop of nominees.

When members of the HFPA fill out their electronic ballots to vote for nominees, they are presented with choices in those respective categories. If a film or performer is not listed in the category, they cannot be added. Variety has learned exclusively that at the time of the group’s voting for this year’s nominees in December, no feature films that are spoken...

A Czech woman married into a working-class Afghan family provides a nuanced perspective on life in Kabul in the interregnum between Taliban rule in the animated drama “My Sunny Maad,” from director Michaela Pavlátová. Based on a novel by the Czech investigative journalist Petra Procházková, it sensitively portrays the complex environment of Kabul in the second decade of the 21st century. And it feels eerily prescient in the way it captures the ambivalent feelings expressed by many Afghanis toward the West. Current events in Afghanistan as well as the surge of interest in the Danish animated film “Flee” should spark extra desire to see this strong, humanistic film, which nabbed the jury prize in Annecy.

From the opening moments in which the film enters the window of an Afghan house, we see things through the point of view and savvy narration of blond, gray-eyed Herra (voiced by Zuzana Stivínová). She...

Image Source: Everett Collection

The 2022 Golden Globe nominations are in, and the competition is fierce! Television and movies really stepped it up in 2021, and it shows - get it? On Monday, Dec. 13, Snoop Dogg announced the movies and television shows nominated for the 79th annual Golden Globe Awards, taking place on Jan. 9, on behalf of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. The Power of the Dog and Belfast dominated in the film categories, whereas Pose, Succession, and Squid Game rose to the top in the TV categories.

The nominations for the 2022 ceremony come months after NBC announced in May that it would not air the Globes due to reports about the HFPA not having any Black members on the board of 87 journalists. Following the backlash, the HFPA revealed in August that it had made steps to make membership more inclusive by adding "21 new and predominantly diverse journalists (the largest in HFPA...

After a scandal-plagued year, the Golden Globes forged ahead with film and television nominees for its 2022 show, which is set to take place Jan. 9, but will not be televised.

In the film world, Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast and Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog led all nominees with seven each, including Best Motion Picture – Drama. In that category, they’ll compete against Coda, Dune. and King Richard.

Belfast stars Caitriona Balfe, Jamie Dornan. and Ciarán Hinds were all nominated for acting awards as well, while Branagh picked up Best Director and Screenplay nods.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, which during the past eight months has been reforming its organization in the wake of criticism over a lack of diverse membership, questionable standards and conduct, announced nominations for its 2022 Golden Globes on Monday.

Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast from Focus Features and Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog from Netflix pace all nominations on the film side, where Netflix scored a leading 17 noms. HBO/HBO Max tops the TV side with 10 noms, including a leading five for reigning Emmy champ Succession.

The event from the Beverly Hilton, presided over by new president Helen Hoehne and Snoop Dogg, who both read the nominations, comes amid fallout that saw studios, networks and top PR firms cut working ties with the organization, and NBC, which broadcasts the Globes each year as a key awards-season stop, decide not to broadcast the 2022 edition.

Critics Choice Awards Film Nominations...

Animation, documentary submissions also tallied.

The Academy has confirmed it has received 93 country submissions for the international feature film category in the run-up to the 94th Oscars on March 27, 2022.

The Academy said on Monday (December 6) it had also received 26 animated feature and 138 documentary feature submissions.

The entire list of international feature film submissions can be viewed here and includes a first submission from Somalia. The Academy said some of the films have not yet had their required qualifying release and must fulfil that requirement and comply with all the category’s other qualifying rules to advance in the voting process.

Animation, documentary submissions also tallied.

The Academy has confirmed it has received 93 country submissions for the international feature film category in the run-up to the 94th Oscars on March 27, 2022.

The Academy said on Monday (December 6) it had also received 26 animated feature and 138 documentary feature submissions.

The entire list of international feature film submissions can be viewed here and includes a first submission from Somalia. The Academy said some of the films have not yet had their required qualifying release and must fulfil that requirement and comply with all the category’s other qualifying rules to advance in the voting process.