Edge of the Knife (Sgaawaay K'uuna), a drama set in 19th Century Haida Gwaii, has won both the Best BC Film Award and Best Canadian Film Award at the Vancouver International Film Festival.
Blending mythical and natural drama, the film was shot in two dialects of the Haida language. There are only a few handfuls of fluent Haida speakers left.
Love 'em or hate 'em, millions around the world tune in each year for the melodrama, the tears, the frocks, the excruciating speeches, and the occasional faux pas.
It's all totally over the top. At least, it is to us mere mortals. The movies themselves rarely live up to the gilded words and the self-aggrandising promise of the Oscars ceremony. But those coveted little gold men can seal careers and ensure a healthy future in the movie business for anyone fortunate enough to walk away with one in gripped fist.
The Edinburgh International Film Festival is the longest continuously running film festival in the world. After London, it is arguably the UK's most prestigious film festival.
Set in the historic capital of Scotland, the festival has run in mid-June since 2008, moving from its traditional fortnight long run during the August Edinburgh Festival.
The Hurt Locker was expected to fare well at the Oscars, but even the team behind the Afghanistan-set feature looked like they never dreamed of doing quite as well as this. In the end, they took six Oscars, including the big two - Best Picture and Best Director, for Kathryn Bigelow (as I predicted in my Oscars preview).Amazingly, this was the first time a woman has ever won a Best Director award. The Hurt Locker also won Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Screenplay.
“After you're nominated, it's like a crapshoot, it's like throwing dice.” Morgan Freeman
Freeman was talking about the Oscars, of course. If I was a betting man I'd put money on him for his performance as Nelson Mandela in Clint Eastwood's Invinctus. I like a long shot every now and then and with William Hill putting Freeman at 26 to 1 he has the longest odds of the group of five leading actors.
Hollywood's other big awards race, the Oscars, may be more avidly followed, but the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's annual awards nevertheless carry some clout in the biz.
The event is always well attended, with plenty of familiar Hollywood faces gracing the red carpet to warrant television coverage in 160 countries worldwide. The Golden Globes includes gongs for television as well as film.
The annual Edinburgh International Film Festival has announced the full programme of films for its new 10-day slot in June. Scottish and British filmmakers should be out in force with many of the cast and crew from the two British films that are bookending this year's fest expected to make it to Edinburgh.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ballot system is still done in the same way as it was in 1936 - by hand.
This is a description of how the Academy decides Oscar-winners.
The Academy likes Oltmanns and Rosas, the secretive agents of Oscar, to be safe and dull.Monty Python's sketch about the chartererd accountant who wanted to become a lion tamer (watch on YouTube) may have had fun sending up this "dull, dull, dull" profession.
The Vancouver International Film Festival yesterday launched the programme for its 25th anniversary film festival. Over 340 films will be screened between 28th Sept - 13th Oct, ten of which are world premieres, 26 international premieres, and 28 North American premieres.
The film opens with Pedro Almodovar's Volver and closes with Stephen Frears's The Queen, in which Helen Mirren plays HRH during the period before and after the death of Princess Diana.