Oscar-nominated feature No by director Pablo Larraín starring Gael García Bernal are among the ten Galas that will screen at the 30th Miami International Film Festival. The ten-day fest will host 117 features and 12 shorts from 41 countries with an emphasis on films from Latin America.
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Nine films have advanced to the final round of pre-nominations in the Academy's Best Foreign Language category. Previously 71 films had qualified for consideration. This weekend's Sony Classics release, Amour, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival is among the films making the shortlist as well as Canada's War Witch, the Gael Garcia Bernal starter No (Chile), France's huge global box office hit A Royal Affair, Iceland's Baltasar Kormákur's The Deep and lauded Romanian director Cristian Mungiu's Beyond the Hills.
Five nominees will emerge from this list via Academy members who will view the shortlist after the new year and then casting their ballots. The 85th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 10, 2013, at 5:30 a.m. PT, and the Oscar ceremony will take place February 24th.
The Best Foreign-Language Oscar Shortlist for the 85th Academy Awards:
Austria, "Amour," Michael Haneke, director
Canada, "War Witch," Kim Nguyen, director
Chile, "No," Pablo Larraín, director
Denmark, "A Royal Affair," Nikolaj Arcel, director
France, "The Intouchables," Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, directors
Iceland, "The Deep," Baltasar Kormákur, director
Norway, "Kon-Tiki," Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg, directors
Romania, "Beyond the Hills," Cristian Mungiu, director
Switzerland, "Sister," Ursula Meier, director
Is the influx of advertising necessarily bad for democracy? The Chilean film No suggests the answer is a qualified, well, no. And damned if the new trailer doesn't make you feel stuff, and junk, about the right of the people to self-government.
In 1988, Augusto Pinochet had ruled Chile as a dictator for 15 years and was, for the first time, facing an actual election. Of course, the Chilean constitution (drafted by the ruling junta in 1978) was largely an ex post facto justification for Pinochet's continual power; it provided for an 8-year long 'transition' beginning in 1980, during which Pinochet would help the country prepare to resume 'democratic' rule, at the end of which the junta would select a candidate to officially run for the office of President. When '88 rolled around, the junta magically decided that Pinochet was the right man for the job, and the plebiscite held in accordance with the constitution was worded in a way that almost guaranteed he would win.
The ballot asked only if the proposed candidate be rejected or accepted. Yes meant 8 more years of Pinochet and the Junta, 'no' meant new elections in early 1989, including the reestablishment of a national parliament. This wording made it easy for the junta to portray keeping Pinochet as the positive choice. Amazingly, the Chilean people voted against Pinochet's clumsy attempt to play Emperor Augustus anyway, and because the US wasn't interested in interfering in local politics anymore, he was forced to accept the results and step down. 'No', Chile's official selection for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, chronicles the battle to convince Chile to vote Pinochet out of office, using modern advertising techniques in lieu of impassioned populist rhetoric.
The last year of the 1980s is largely remembered for the revolutions of 1989, when the end of the Cold War became a fait accompli with the sudden rash of (mostly) nonviolent uprisings that ended the Soviet-backed dictatorships of eastern Europe. Less widely commemorated, but no less important, was the end of a particularly brutal Western-backed dictatorship the year before. No finally sheds a light on success. It's directed by Pablo Larrain, and stars Gael Garcia Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Antónia Zegers, Luis Dnecco, Marcial Tafle, Nastor Cantillana, Jaime Vadell, Pascal Montero.
No opens in wide release on February 15, 2013.
He's made dozens of films since his 2001 breakout Y Tu Mamá También charmed audiences not only at home in Mexico, but also north of the border. Since then he played a priest in The Crime of Father Amaro, acted with the likes of Brad Pitt and Cate Blachett in Babel, a footballer (soccer player) in Rudo Y Cursi and even the revolutionary Ernest "Ché" Guevara in The Motorcycle Diaries. But now Gael García Bernal, the Mexican actor/director/producer and even festival founder (he and fellow actor Diego Luna co-founded Mexico's Ambulante Documentary Festival), is playing a more conventional revolutionary of sorts in Pablo Larraín's No, which debuted last May in Cannes and will screen at the Locarno Film Festival, which opens Wednesday.
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Also in Tuesday morning's news round up: Icon will produce Lee Daniels' next project, James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain team for a double-feature, Zac Efron and Seth Rogen will pair for a new project, and more...
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