Penélope Cruz, Bernardo Bertolucci, Gael García Bernal Sign Polanski Petition

Actor Gael García Bernal, Academy Award-winning actress Penélope Cruz, veteran director Mario Monicelli, veteran screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr, and Academy Award-winning filmmakers Bernardo Bertolucci and Ethan Coen are a few of the latest additions to the list of signatories demanding freedom for filmmaker Roman Polanski, currently being held by Swiss authorities.
Among the other new signatories of the petition organized by France’s Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques (SACD) are:
Author Ariel Dorfman; actor-screenwriter Buck Henry; composer Vangelis; actors Sylvia Kristel and Anne Consigny; filmmakers Fatih Akin, Juan Antonio Bayona, Djamel Bennecib, Giuseppe Bertolucci, Alain Berliner, Guillermo del Toro, Michel Deville, Sam Gabarski, Diane Kurys, Tonie Marshall, Brett Ratner, and Jerry Schatzberg; World Cinema Foundation director Kent [...]

by Andre Soares | September 30, 2009   
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The DGA vs. the Academy

Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi in Summertime

In 1948, the 12-year-old Directors Guild of America (DGA), then known as the Screen Directors Guild (SDG), began handing out yearly achievement awards. George Sidney, Frank Capra, Delmer Daves, John Ford, H. Bruce Humberstone, Irving Pichel, Norman Taurog, and, ex-officio, Guild president George Marshall took part in the initial Awards Committee, which selected the Directors Guild Award honorees.
Before 1970, the Guild’s yearly list of finalists consisted of a variable number of directors, usually more than five. From 1970 on, when the Directors Guild began restricting its list of nominees to five directors per year, a DGA nod has usually translated into an Oscar nod. There have been, however, quite a few exceptions to [...]

by Andre Soares | December 30, 2006   
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