In Contention

Tag: A Separation

  • Lebanese foreign film submission ‘Where Do We Go Now?’ wins Toronto’s People’s Choice Award

    I can’t say I’m all that aware yet of Nadine Labaki’s “Where Do We Go Now?,” which Guy recently called “a serious-minded comedy with musical elements that premiered to warm reviews in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, where it earned a special mention from the Ecumenical Jury.” But the film has swooped in and nabbed the Toronto Film Festival’s People’s Choice Award when many were predicting “The Artist” would charm its way to the prize. Expect a domestic distributor to pounce any day now.

    The film was recently submitted by Lebanon into the foreign film race, and one of the runners-up in Toronto, Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation,” was also slotted by Iran. So for a festival that usually paves the way for the major categories in an Oscar race (more on that tomorrow), Toronto has actually heated up the race for Best Foreign Language Film. Unexpected and, I might say, entirely refreshing, that.

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  • Iran’s ‘A Separation’ latest to enter Oscar race

    I’d say this was a no-brainer, but one should never underestimate the ability of countries to shoot themselves in the foot when selecting their submissions for the foreign-language Oscar. Happily, Iran has done no such thing, picking Asghar Farhadi’s critically beloved festival sensation “A Separation” as their pony this year.

    It’s a choice that I suspect will pay off handsomely. I’ll be astonished if the film doesn’t at least make the January shortlist — it should play well enough with general voters, but the executive committee should swoop in if it doesn’t. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine this smart, humanistic marital drama going all the way to the podium, particularly with Sony Pictures Classics — unmatched campaigners in this category — steering the film.

    Ecstatic critical notices at Toronto and Telluride (Kris’s take here) are merely the newest feather in the film’s cap: it already nabbed the Golden Bear (plus Best Actor and Actress) at February’s Berlin fest, and was released to a shower of acclaim in the UK this summer. If the buzz continues to build for this late-December release, could Sony even angle for extra attention in the highly pliable Best Original Screenplay category? A far-fetched suggestion, perhaps, but I wonder.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: And we’re off!

    This morning’s interview with “Into the Abyss” director Werner Herzog represented my last Telluride communique (though I guess I was already home) from this year’s 38th annual festivities. Five days, 18 posts, nine movies and three interviews. It was a dense sprint to start the race, and now, with Venice still in-progress and Toronto set to raise the curtain Thursday, we find ourselves in the thick of the season’s early breaths.

    Up in the Colorado mountains, the biggest takeaway was Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants.” Payne was highly visible throughout the festival, sometimes taking in six or seven movies a day, fielding compliments for his work and settling in to what has apparently become his favorite festival experience.

    His film first dropped on Thursday afternoon as a special invitation screening for press and patrons. That’s where most of the early word stemmed from as critics and bloggers (yours truly among them) raced back to offer up our thoughts on the director’s first film in seven years. But that’s not the story of that film’s life at Telluride. The story was its discovery for the rest of the attendees over the next four days.

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  • TELLURIDE: Sent off on a high note

    Today is the final day of the 38th annual Telluride fest, and the whole thing was another rewarding sprint through the Labor Day weekend. This afternoon I had the great pleasure of sitting down with “The Descendants” star Shailene Woodley to get her wide-eyed, “it’s all happening” perspective on the early days of this year’s awards season. But the day started with perhaps the narrative highlight of the festival for me so far.

    Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation” is, plain and simple, a masterful piece of work that will be with me for a very long time. On the surface it is about the fallout of an Iranian couple headed for divorce but side-tracked by a tragic accident that leaves the husband tangled in a judicial web, but on a deeper level, it’s about so much more. Call it “divorce and its discontents,” because it is, ultimately, a study of parenthood and integrity and situational decisions that impact the impressionable.

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  • TELLURIDE: Sony Classics, IFC and Searchlight party into the night

    I opted out of tonight’s screening of “Butter” largely because — sorry to say — the Galaxy theater is just too cramped and uncomfortable and hot to fully enjoy a film experience. For me, anyway. I tend to be a furnace regardless, but they need to pump some AC into that joint. By some accounts, though, it was a delightful if somewhat skippable affair. Instead I took to the party circuit, as three studios chose Saturday to hold their talent-studded affairs.

    The night started with Sony Pictures Classics’ annual dinner gathering at La Marmotte. In attendance were “A Dangerous Method” scribe Christopher Hampton, “A Separation” writer/director Asghar Farhadi and “In Darkness” director Agnieszka Holland. Pay close attention to those last two, as they will no doubt figure into this year’s race for Best Foreign Language Film.

    I had a few choice moments with Hampton to discuss his collaboration with David Cronenberg. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet seen the film (Sunday night seems to make the most sense), but I did ask about his take on some reviewers (including our own Guy Lodge) preferring a bit of overt and edgy Cronenberg for a clearly sexual project. His response was that austerity was preferred considering a commitment to truth, and indeed, it seems to me a more cerebral approach would be, at the very least, more realistic for a film such as this. I’ll have an opinion soon enough.

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