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Austria’s refreshingly outré official submission to this year’s Oscars race (it didn’t advance to the shortlist) is a captivating exploration of glamour, schmoozing and the soul-draining superficialities of what Joni Mitchell called the star-making machinery. As with their previous features, directors Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel handle all the top-line production duties themselves on Vera, shooting on 16mm and using mostly nonprofessional actors in a blend of drama and documentary. But their latest outing is also a leap into more structured fiction, and at its center is a woman who’s no stranger to the camera.

Vera Gemma, who won the Orizzonti Award for best female performance upon the film’s Venice premiere, has been a reality star, stripper, lion tamer, writer and director, as well as an actor. She grew up on movie sets, at the feet of her famous dad, Giuliano Gemma, a beloved luminary...

Italian multi-hyphenate Vera Gemma, who is the daughter of iconic Spaghetti Western star Giuliano Gemma, grew up in the shadow of her father’s fame. But in “Vera” — Austria’s candidate for the best international feature Oscar, directed by Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel — she’s the one in the spotlight.

The moving but never maudlin portrait of the burden of being born into celebrity launched from the 2022 Venice Film Festival’s cutting-edge Horizons section, where it had the rare distinction of winning awards for both best director and actress before going on to garner more praise on the fest circuit.

Below, Gemma speaks to Variety about how the film mirrors her real life, navigating her father’s legacy and making carbonara for Quentin Tarantino.

How did this film about you originate?

We met while they were making a doc titled “Mister Universo” about an animal tamer and I was...

Premiering at the 2022 Venice Film Festival in the Horizons sidebar (where it was awarded Best Director and Best Actress), Tiza Covi and Rainer Frimmel‘s latest film Vera is a unique hybrid docu-fiction portrait of actress Vera Gemma, daughter of famed Spaghetti Western star Giuliano Gemma. Exploring the darker side of nepotism in an industry which unfortunately rewards superficial tendencies, Vera’s origins have allowed for a certain livelihood but also has been her albatross. Through semi-autobiographical flourishes, she plays herself in a narrative which further blurs the lines of reality.

I spoke with directors Tiza Covi and Rainer Frimmel, as well as star Vera Gemma to discuss Vera, Austria’s official submission in the category of Best International Feature for the 96th Academy Awards.…...

The submissions for this year’s Oscar for best international feature include some of the best of world cinema. Below is a rundown of the entries for the 96th Academy Awards. The 15-title shortlist is slated to arrive on Dec. 21, prior to the nominations announcement on Jan. 23 and the ceremony itself, which is dated for March 10.

Albania

Alexander

Director: Ardit Sadiku

Logline: A documentary about an engineer who, after being fired by the navy for dissidence, hijacked a warship to get himself an dhis family to freedom.

Prodco: Ardit Sadiku Film

Argentina

The Delinquents

Director: Rodrigo Moreno

Logline: A ticklish, gently surreal saga following two colleagues who collude in robbing the bank where they work.

U.S. distribution: Mubi

Armenia

Amerikatsi

Director: Michael A. Goorjian

Logline: An Armenian-American relocates to Armenia after WWII and ends up in a Soviet prison for the crime of wearing a tie.

U.S.

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Screen is profiling every submission for best international feature at the 96th Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2024 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 96th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 10, 2024 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline...

Update: The Venice Film Festival has now handed out its awards, and for the second time ever crowned a documentary as the Golden Lion, while also spreading the love around.

Oscar winner Laura Poitras’ All the Beauty and the Bloodshed walked away with the top honor tonight. It follows Gianfranco Rosi’s Sacro Gra (2013) as a non-fiction Lion winner. The film is a portrait of Nan Goldin, the 68-year-old photographer who was prescribed Oxycontin, quickly became addicted to it, found recovery through a replacement drug and then threw her energies into calling the Sackler family to account. In Deadline’s review Stephanie Bunbury wrote that the film “makes clear is that this is all of a piece with the photographs of drag queens, prostitutes and parties, the angry records of AIDS sufferers, the portraits that show glamour and tenderness where others might see the grotesque.”

Meanwhile, Luca Guadagnino scored Best...

As our 2022 Venice Film Festival coverage wraps up, the juries have now unveiled their picks, most notably featuring Julianne Moore’s competition jury. Leading the pack is Laura Poitras’ new documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, which picked up the top prize of Golden Lion, while Alice Diop, Luca Guadagnino, Cate Blanchett, Jafar Panahi, Colin Farrell, and more also received awards.

See the list of winners, with a hat tip to Variety, along with links to our reviews––and check back soon for coverage of Saint Omer, No Bears, and more.

Competition

Golden Lion for Best Film: “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” Laura Poitras

Grand Jury Prize: “Saint Omer,” Alice Diop

Silver Lion for Best Director: “Bones and All,” Luca Guadagnino

Special Jury Prize: “No Bears,” Jafar Panahi

Best Screenplay: “The Banshees of Inisherin,” Martin McDonagh

Volpi Cup for Best Actress: “TÁR,” Cate Blanchett

Volpi Cup for Best Actor: “The Banshees of Inisherin,...

All The Beauty And The Bloodshed In Competition(Jury: Julianne Moore, Mariano Cohn, Leonardo di Costanzo, Audrey Diwan, Leila Hatami, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rodrigo Sorogoyen)Golden Lion – All The Beauty And The Bloodshed (Laura Poitras)Silver Lion (Grand Jury Prize) – Saint Omer (Alice Diop)Silver Lion (Best Director) – Luca Guadagnino (Bones & All)Coppa Volpi for Best Actress – Cate Blanchett (Tár)Coppa Volpi for Best Actor – Colin Farrell (The Banshees Of Inisherin)Best Screenplay – Martin McDonagh (The Banshees Of Inisherin)Special Jury Prize – No Bears (Jafar Panahi)Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress – Taylor Russell (Bones & All)Orizzonti(Jury: Isabel Coixet, Laura Bispuri, Antonio Campos, Sofia Djama, Edourad Waintrop)Orizzonti Award for Best Film – World War III (Houman Seyedi)Orizzonti Award for Best Director – Vera (Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel)Special Orizzonti Jury Prize – Bread And Salt (Damian Kocur)Orizzonti Award for Best Actress – Vera Gemma (Vera)Orizzonti Award for...

‘Saint Omer’ takes Grand Jury prize; best director to Luca Guadagnino for ‘Bones And All’.

Laura Poitras’ All The Beauty And The Bloodshed won the Golden Lion at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, becoming only the second documentary to take the top prize in the event’s 90-year history.

”I need to thank the festival first and foremost, for understanding that documentary is cinema,” said US director Poitras, accepting the award. She proceeded to voice support for Iranian filmmaker and fellow Competition director Jafar Panahi, who is currently under arrest in his home country.

Scroll down for the full list of...

The 2022 Venice Film Festival has awarded Laura Poitras’ “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed” the Golden Lion for Best Film, with Colin Farrell and Cate Blanchett landing the Coppa Volpi for Best Actor and Best Actress.

The Silver Lion for Best Director went to Luca Guadagnino for “Bones and All.” The cannibal love story also saw co-star Taylor Russell win the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Young Actor or Actress.

In addition to Farrell, “The Banshees of Inisherin” won the award for Best Screenplay for writer-director Martin McDonagh. The film, which follows an abrupt fallout between two best friends (“In Bruges” co-stars Farrell and Brendan Gleeson), received a 13-minute standing ovation at its Tuesday premiere. Meanwhile, Blanchett won her second Volpi Cup (following her performance as Bob Dylan in 2007’s “I’m Not There”) for playing the world-renowned composer at the center of Todd Field’s “Tár.”

Also Read:

Brendan Fraser...

The winners of the 2022 Venice Film Festival are being announced this evening.

The 79th Venice Film Festival comes to a close today with the awards ceremony, held at the Sala Grande in the Palazzo del Cinema from 6pm BST (7pm Cet).

Watch the ceremony live in the video above; Screen will be updating this page with the winners as they are announced.

The ceremony will be hosted by Spanish actress Rocio Munoz Morales, who also hosted the opening ceremony. A Competition jury led by Julianne Moore will award nine prizes, including the Golden Lion for best film.

Winners in the...

Click here to read the full article.

Laura Poitras’s documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed has won the 2022 Golden Lion for best film at the 79th Venice International Film Festival.

The documentary follows the life of artist Nan Goldin and her campaign against the Sackler family, the pharmaceutical dynasty that was greatly responsible for the opioid epidemic.

Poitras, an Oscar-winner for her Edward Snowden documentary Citizenfour, dedicated the prize to Goldin.

“This is for Nan. I love you Nan. Monday is her birthday, so we’ll bring this to Nan,” she said.

Produced by Participant and Poitras’ Praxis Films, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed will go out domestically via Neon and HBO.

Cate Blanchett won Venice’s best actress honors for her bracing turn as a classical conductor in Todd Field’s Tár. The award kicks off the Oscar campaign for the film, and for Blanchett, who...

After nearly two weeks of lush red carpets, timed standing ovations, and viral “Don’t Worry Darling” drama, the 79th Venice Film Festival comes to a close on Saturday in the Sala Grande at the Palazzo del Cinema (Lido di Venezia). Julianne Moore chairs the festival’s jury alongside her fellow judges and elite film peers Mariano Cohn, Leonardo di Costanzo, Audrey Diwan, Leila Hatami, Kazuo Ishiguro, and Rodrigo Sorogoyen.

“I feel like so often the discussion around the future of cinema ends up being a discussion that’s more commercial, more business oriented,” Moore said in her opening remarks on August 31. “When we talk about the future of cinema it often degrades into what the future of the business is. That’s not the future of art.”

Established in 1932, Venice is the oldest ongoing cinematic awards celebration and is regarded among the world’s most esteemed international film festivals. 22 titles...

Our own Derek Botelho has dedicated countless hours over multiple years to his examination of the work of Dario Argento and we’re happy to see that The Argento Syndrome is now available to read around the world. For those who live in the Los Angeles area, we wanted to tell you about a signing event for the book that includes Derek and a number of special guests:

The Argento Syndrome – In Stores Now! Star-Filled Signing Event Announced!

A retrospective of Italian auteur Dario Argento, The Argento Syndrome is an examination of a career marked by such genre classics as The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, Suspiria, Deep Red, Tenebrae and Opera. The Argento Syndrome is part academic study, with essays on every film, and part personal memoir, detailing the author’s time in Italy on a trip to visit the set of Non Ho Sonno. Also included are several...