Nominated For Best Picture – The David di Donatello Awards 2012

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The nominations for the Italian Oscars, The David di Donatello Awards, were announced today and I couldn’t be happier. For the most part, the films, filmmakers, and actors are very deserving.

In the Best Picture category, the nominees make an outstanding list:

I’ve seen three of the five; Cesare Deve Morire and Romanzo di Strage have not been released to DVD and I’ll have to wait until they are. Habemus Papam, Terraferma, and This Must Be The Place are all excellent and all of them are worthy of top prizes.

Habemus Papam, We Have A Pope, premiered at Cannes and is available in select locations around the US this month. It was written, directed by and stars Nanni Moretti, who coincidentally will be the jury president at Cannes this year. His La Stanza Del Figlio won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2001. Habemus Papam is the story of the Pope and his therapist.

Read the review of We Have A Pope

This Must Be The Place also premiered at Cannes, was in competition at Sundance and will be distributed by Weinstein Company. The story of an aging rocker on a nazi hunt, t’s director Paolo Sorrentino and is his first English language film starring Sean Penn and Frances McDormand.

Read the review of This Must Be The Place

Terraferma premiered at the Venice Film Festival and is the story of illegal immigration problems in Lampadusa. DIrected by Emanuale Crialese, it stars Donatella Finocchiaro.

Read the review of Terraferma

Romanzo di una Strage stars – MY FAVORITE! Luigi LoCascio, along with Pierfrancesco Favino, Valerio Mastrandrea and Laura Chiatti. This one was directed by Marco Tulio Giordana who also gave us The Best of Youth.

Cesare Deve Morire, from the Taviani brothers is a powerful docu-drama filmed mostly in black and white inside Rome’s Rebibbia Prison. A director and the inmates stage Julius Caesar and the production takes on a life of its own.

I’ll be making my guesses and so should you. Enter the 2nd Annual David di Donatello Awards Movie Contest!