Berlin 2008: Out of Competition Film Line-Up

Out of Competition

Opening Film:
Shine a Light, USA
by Martin Scorsese
with the Rolling Stones

Fireflies in the Garden, USA (World Premiere)
by Dennis Lee
with Julia Roberts, Ryan Reynolds, Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson

Katyn, Poland (International Premiere)
by Andrzej Wajda
with Maja Ostaszewska, Artur Zmijewski and Andrzej Chyra

The Other Boleyn Girl, USA / Great Britain (World Premiere)
by Justin Chadwick
with Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana

Closing Film:
Be Kind Rewind, USA (International Premiere)
by Michel Gondry
with Jack Black, Mos Def, Danny Glover, Mia Farrow, Melonie Diaz

Oscar 2008 Predictions: Best Film, Foreign Language Film, Documentary, Animated Film

Best Film: No Country for Old Men
Until late last week, things were still somewhat murky in the best film race. No Country for Old Men (above, with Tommy Lee Jones) and There Will Be Blood were the front-runners, while Juno was the fluffy dark horse that could potentially tip the scale against the heavy-drama heavyweights. But after its SAG best ensemble and DGA wins, No Country for Old Men, about a drug deal gone murderously wrong, has become the official front-runner.
 

Best Foreign Language Film: Katyn (Poland)
As I’ve said before, this is the toughest feature-film category to predict. None of the five nominees — Beaufort, 12, The Counterfeiters, Mongol, and Katyn — has been widely reviewed in the United States.
I’d [...]

Oscar 2008: Foreign Language Film Nominees Symposium

Katyn (top); The Counterfeiters (middle); Mongol (bottom)

The filmmakers of this year’s Academy Award-nominated foreign-language films will take part — "subject to availability" — in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Foreign Language Film Award Nominees Symposium on Saturday, February 23, at 10 a.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. [2008 Foreign Language Film Academy Award Symposium Photos.]
The event, which includes clips from the nominated films and a Q&A session with audience members, will be moderated by Oscar-winning producer and Foreign Language Executive Committee Chair Mark Johnson.
The 2007 Foreign Language Film nominees are:

Austria, The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky, director
Israel, Beaufort, Joseph Cedar, director
Kazakhstan, Mongol, Sergei Bodrov, director
[...]

Oscar 2008: Nine Foreign-Language Film Semi-Finalists

Oscar 2008: Best Foreign-Language Film Semi-Finalists
The semi-finalist films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

Austria, The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky, director
Nazis have a Jewish prisoner create fake American and British currency in order to weaken their enemies’ economies

Brazil, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, Cao Hamburger, director
In 1970, during the height of the military dictatorship in Brazil, a boy is left alone in São Paulo’s Jewish quarter after his parents "go on vacation"

Canada, Days of Darkness, Denys Arcand, director
A civil servant finds solace from his drab existence by coming up with all types of Walter Mitty-like fantasies

Israel, Beaufort, Joseph Cedar, director
Israeli platoon leaves the last [...]

Oscar 2008: Best Foreign-Language Film Semi-Finalists

The Unknown by Giuseppe Tornatore (top); The Counterfeiters by Stefan Ruzowitzky (bottom)

When I stated in my Oscar 2008 predictions that the Academy’s foreign-language film shortlist is the most difficult to predict, I wasn’t kidding.
Nowhere to be found in the list of nine foreign-language film semi-finalists are:

Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days — last year’s Cannes Film Festival winner and considered by numerous U.S. critics one of the best films of 2007;
Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s much-ballyhooed and New York Film Critics Circle winner Persepolis, which may still get a best animated feature nod;
and Juan Antonio Bayona’s box-office hit and multiple-Goya nominee The Orphanage.

Additionally, there was a major surprise among those that [...]