Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth” won the $15,000 Louve D’Or prize at the 38th Montreal Festival du Nouveau Cinema at the weekend. The disturbing, yet strangely comedic film screened at Cannes earlier this year and then at Toronto (read our review).
The World Soundtrack Awards were this weekend and Alexandre Desplat (“Birth,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox”) won the best film score of the year for “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” A.R. Rahman won two awards including best original song for the “Slumdog Millionaire” tune, “Jai Ho.”
The full list of nominees have been announced for the 2009 Gotham Independent Awards. Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” and Robert Siegel’s “Big Fan” led the pack taking three nominations each, including Best Picture for both (Siegel also earned himself a Breakthrough Director nomination). Other films competing for Best Feature include, “A Serious Man,” “Amreeka” and the recently released Chilean film, “The Maid.” “Precious” was totally snubbed, which doesn’t bode well for the Oscars, which is fine, because aside from the performances, it’s an overwrought film.
Wanna find out when the hell Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful” will hit U.S. screens (most likely not in 2009 or we’d have all heard about it by now)? Try accosting him in Japan. He’s head of the jury of the Tokyo International Film Festival.
Wanna find out what Danny Boyle’s next project will be? Accost him when he gives a master class at the Doha Tribeca Film Festival in Qatar.
The AFI Festival has announced its full line-up. Tom Ford’s “A Single Man” is the closing night film. Terry Gilliam’s “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus” is the centerpiece picture and the festival will also feature tributes to Viggo Mortensen and Christoper Plummer. This 23rd addition runs October 30 – November 7 and this year unfortunately doesn’t have any December question marks like “Nine” or “The Lovely Bones.” Last year, AFI Fest was the first to give us a peek at “Revolutionary Road” so this year is a bit of a letdown considering we’ll have seen (as a group) everything, including “Fantastic Mr. Fox” before it screens there.