Nastri d’Argento - 2007 Nominations
by Andre Soares
The two top nominees for the 61st Nastri d’Argento Italian Cinema Awards presented by the National Union of Italian Film Journalists (Sindacato Nazionale Giornalisti Cinematografici Italiani) are Giuseppe Tornatore’s suspense drama La Sconosciuta / The Unknown Woman (above, lower photo) and Nanni Moretti’s anarchic political satire Il Caimano / The Caiman (above, upper photo), each with 7 nominations.
Tornatore’s first film in six years, La Sconosciuta stars Xenia Rappoport as an Ukrainian immigrant who finds a job as a cleaning lady to a wealthy Italian family. Needless to say, the woman’s dark and dangerous past eventually catches up with her. Tornatore himself received two nominations, for best direction and best screenplay. (There’s no “best film” category at the Nastri d’Argento.)
Il Caimano stars best actor Nastro d’Argento nominee Silvio Orlando as a down-on-his-luck film producer who starts shooting a film that happens to be a merciless attack on (by now) former Italian prime-minister Silvio Berlusconi. Among the other Caimano nominees are Margherita Buy as best actress (also for Saturno contro / Saturn in Opposition), and Nanni Moretti as best director and best producer (along with Angelo Barbagallo). Curiously, Il Caimano failed to nab a best screenplay nod. (Some critics hated it.)
The other four nominees in the best director category are:
Veteran Marco Bellocchio for Il Regista di matrimoni / The Wedding Director, a surrealistic story about a filmmaker who is hired to videotape the wedding of a princess.
Saverio Costanzo for In memoria di me / In Memory of Myself (above), which depicts the inner struggles of a young Catholic novice (Christo Jivkov).
Emanuele Crialese for Nuovomondo / The Golden Door (right), which follows a Sicilian family on their way to the United States. Nuovomondo was Italy’s submission for the 2007 best foreign-language film Academy Award.
Ferzan Ozpetek for Saturno contro, the story of a group of friends — of various sexual orientations — and how their friendship is affected when one of them suffers a stroke.
Among the nominees for best European film are Ken Loach’s Palm d’Or-winning drama The Wind That Shakes the Barley, Pedro Almodóvar’s Goya-winning comedy-drama Volver, and Stephen Frears’s Bafta-winning drama The Queen.
Clint Eastwood’s Academy Award-nominated Letters from Iwo Jima, Jia Zhang Ke’s 2006 Venice Film Festival winner Sanxia haoren / Still Life, and Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris’s crowd-pleaser Little Miss Sunshine are up for the best non-European film Nastro.
Strangely, Woody Allen’s British-made Match Point is also up for a Nastro d’Argento for best non-European film.
Giuseppe Bertolucci’s Pasolini prossimo nostro / Pasolini Next to Us, comprised of a collage of stills taken by photographer Deborah Imogen Beer on the set of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s highly controversial 1975 political drama SalÁ² o le 120 giornate di Sodoma / Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom, is up for the best documentary Nastro.
Marco Leonardi, the romantic lead in Nuovo cinema Paradiso / Cinema Paradiso and Como agua para chocolate / Like Water for Chocolate, is up for a best actor Nastro for his role as troubled Argentinian soccer player Diego Maradona in Marco Risi’s Maradona, la mano de Dio / Maradona, the Hand of God, while Laura Morante is in the running for best actress for her performance as Lambert Wilson’s unhappy fiancee in Alain Resnais’s masterful Coeurs / Private Fears in Public Places (right). (Italian talent in non-Italian films is also eligible for the Nastri. In addition to Morante, other such nominees this year are composer Andrea Guerra for The Pursuit of Happyness and production designer Dante Ferretti for The Black Dahlia.)
Additionally, Monica Bellucci is one of the best supporting actress nominees for N - Io e Napoleone / N.: Napoleon & Me; Italian superstar Kim Rossi Stuart is up for two Nastri, as best new director and as one of the screenwriters of Anche libero va bene / Along the Ridge; veteran Mario Monicelli is up for a Nastro in the best screenplay category for Le rose del deserto / The Roses of the Desert (along with co-writers Alessandro Bencivenni and Domenico Saverni); and another veteran, Ermanno Olmi, is up for a best original story Nastro for Centochiodi – reportedly the writer-director’s swan song.
The 2007 Nastri d’Argento nominations were announced on April 16. Ninety-three narrative features and ten documentaries were eligible for the award.
The winners will be announced at Sicily’s Teatro Antico di Taormina on June 23.
The nominations for the Italian Academy’s David di Donatello awards will be announced next May 8.
Full list of 2007 Nastri d’Argento nominees
2007 Nastri d’Argento Winners - Article
Full list of 2006 Nastri d’Argento winners and nominees
Full list of 2005 Nastri d’Argento winners and nominees
2007 German Film Critics winners
2007 French Film Critics’ Étoile d’Or winners
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