A pair of films from our favorite auteurs So Yong Kim's For Ellen and Antonio Campos' Simon Killer are finally making their long awaited world film fest debuts and items from an emerging talent base in the likes of Benh Zeitlin, Ry Russo-Young and James Ponsoldt are part of a handful of lucky filmmakers selected in Sundance's U.S. Dramatic Competiton section.
Continuing with their policy of spreading the joy in all categories, the Gotham independent film award nominations has Sean Durkin’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene” and Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants” leading the pack with three noms each, but mysteriously it is Durkin's gem that is pushed aside in a Best Feature category that includes Fox Searchlight's The Descendants and Tree of Life, the other best indie film of the year in Jeff Nichols's Take Shelter, and a pair of films that many of us associate to 2010 in Meek's Cutoff and Beginners.
Today's announcement for the 2011 Venice Film Festival lineup basically crosses off plenty of sure bets we had been anticipating and makes us circle a bunch of titles we thought had a chance for a 2011 showing but now become hot items for the 2012 campaign. Films such as Juan Diego Solanas' Upside Down, Rodrigo Cortés' Red Lights, Pen-ek Ratanaruang's Headshot, Brillante Mendoza's Prey look more and more like Cannes 2012 items, while acquisition titles such as Antonio Campos' Simon Killer and Nick Cassavetes' Yellow wouldn't be out of place for a Sundance showing.
Today co-directors Cameron Bailey and Piers Handling of the Toronto International Film Festival announce the first batch of titles that are the make-up of the 36th edition. Today's the pair will read off mostly Gala screening mentions (our Blake Williams will be LIVE tweeting), which in turn give us a strong indication as to what will be shown in Venice and what Telluride, NYFF and BFI London Film Festivals might salvage/lasso as their own.