The 28th European Film Awards will take place in Berlin on December 12.
The 4:
Black Souls (Anime Nere) from director Francesco Munzi
“This isn’t the story of a Mafia war, this is a war within one family”, said Munzi, “with all the cultures and contradictions that are inside all families.”
“It’s a tragedy”, he continued, “and it speaks of emotions and not just crime. I like classic Dostoevsky dramas and I wanted to recreate the visual aspects of the great tragedies.
Based on a novel by Gioacchino Criaco, “Black Souls” has been called by some “the new Gomorra”, but Anime Nere’s “not just a mafia movie” and has a more compelling narrative than Garrone’s classic story of Naples’ Camorra. In it, three brothers from a Calabrian crime family see the future of the family’s heroin/goat herding organization in different ways. The interactions are authentic and the dialogue in Calabrian dialect realistic.
Anime Nere premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2014.
My Mother (Mia Madre) from director Nanni Moretti
Divorced and in a failing relationship, Margherita’s (Margherita Buy) life has four burning pots and no back burner to put them aside to. The film that she’s directing is taking every amount of energy she has, mostly thanks to the manic and arrogant American star (played by John Turturro). At the same time, her mother is in the hospital, dying from heart disease. These things along with the normal everyday life problems are pushing Margherita over the edge. Margherita’s brother is played by Moretti.
Just in case you ever doubted Margherita Buy’s talent as an actress and were getting tired of seeing her with all those Best Actress awards, hang on – Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre will change your mind.
Already a master auteur, this is Nanni Moretti’s best work ever, a perfectly balanced, artfully told story about grief, loss, and self-reflection.
Mia Madre premiered at Cannes and will be in American theaters in November.
Tale of Tales from director Matteo Garrone
Tale of Tales also debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and stars Salma Hayek, John C. Reilly, Vincent Cassel, and Alba Rohrwacher. It’s an English language film that is gory, sexy and definitely not for children, a very grown-up fairy tale based on stories from Neopolitan Giambattista Basile.
Youth (La Giovinezza), from director Paolo Sorrentino also debuted at Cannes and it too, is an English language film starring Michael Caine, Oscar winner Rachel Weisz, two-time Oscar winner Jane Fonda along with Harvey Keitel and Paul Dano.
I don’t know if I have ever seen such wildly diverse reactions to a film; Paolo Sorrentino’s newest, in competition at the Cannes film festival, has left its mark, in any case.
It got a full 17 minutes of applause at Cannes and some called it the best of the festival and a “masterpiece” but not all the reviews were good. One journalist called it “the most conceited, inane, egocentric piece of… Cinema” she’d seen in years”.
Over 3,000 members of the European Film Academy will vote for the nominations in the categories European Film, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenwriter. The nominations will then be announced November 7.
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