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Venice Movie Pageant 2022: What to Watch For

Venice Film Festival 2022: What to Watch For

Though Sundance debuted last year’s Academy Award best-picture winner, “CODA,” and Cannes can be counted on to launch major international films like “Parasite” and “Drive My Car,” when it comes to the real kickoff for Oscar season — the mad crush of prestige films, A-list cocktail parties and awards show buzz that churns all fall and winter — it’s the Venice Film Festival that fires the starting pistol.

On Wednesday, as stars begin to land on the Lido (and Hollywood’s Aperol Spritz consumption increases tenfold), Venice’s 79th edition will officially get underway, and a jury led by Julianne Moore will begin watching some of the most anticipated films of the year. During the week and a half that Venice is in progress, major film festivals in Telluride and Toronto will commence, too; by the time these three fests are over, nearly every prestigious film meant to bow in late 2022 will have been screened.

Venice can certainly be counted on to provide its fair share of memorable, meme-able moments: When Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain nuzzled on a Venice red carpet last year, or Lady Gaga perched atop a speedboat styled like a retro siren, those images ricocheted around the world because of the romantic, old-world glamor Venice delivers. (It’s no wonder that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez chose Venice to make their public debut as a couple last year.) Still, its real value is as an awards-season launchpad where best-picture winners like “Nomadland,” “The Shape of Water” and “Birdman” first found their footing.

The festival’s opening-night movie is the dark comedy “White Noise,” which stars Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig and was adapted from the Don DeLillo novel by the writer-director Noah Baumbach, whose previous film, “Marriage Story,” scored a best -picture nomination and a supporting-actress Oscar win for Laura Dern. But Baumbach is far from the only auteur on the Lido this year to have directed a performer to Oscar glory.

Darren Aronofsky, who opened Venice in 2010 with his feverish Natalie Portman thriller “Black Swan,” will be back with “The Whale,” starring Brendan Fraser as an obese man attempting to reconnect with his teenage daughter. There’s also “The Banshees of Inisherin,” starring Colin Farrell, the writer-director Martin McDonagh’s follow-up to the Oscar-laureled “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.”

Alejandro González Iñárritu, who scored back-to-back best director wins for “The Revenant” and “Birdman,” is returning to Venice with the mystical drama “Bardo.” And after director Florian Zeller pushed Anthony Hopkins to a best-actor win for “The Father,” pundits will be eager to take the measure of Hugh Jackman in Zeller’s latest family drama, “The Son.”

This year’s Venice lineup is also filled with major female-led films, and since Penélope Cruz won the Volpi Cup for best actress at Venice last year — a victory that pushed her “Parallel Mothers” performance into Oscar’s final-five — the Lido could provide an auspicious debut for several of the actresses expected to attend.

Among those anticipated films are “Tar,” which casts Cate Blanchett as a conductor facing controversy; Netflix’s drama “Blonde,” featuring Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe; Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All,” with “Waves” breakout Taylor Russell in a cannibal romance with Timothée Chalamet; and the Tilda Swinton vehicle “The Eternal Daughter.”

And then there’s the thriller “Don’t Worry Darling,” which has already been earning headlines for director Olivia Wilde’s romance with star Harry Styles, a casting controversy involving Shia LaBeouf — Wilde said he was fired from the film, while LaBeouf claimed he quit — and the notably minimal press participation of lead Florence Pugh, who is rumored to be limiting her Venice promotion to a red-carpet appearance at the film’s premiere. After Venice, will Wilde’s worries cease or multiply? We’ll know soon.

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World News

A Century After the Titanic Sank, a Movie Tries to Rescue 6 Survivors’ Tales

A Century After the Titanic Sank, a Film Tries to Rescue 6 Survivors’ Stories

Much about the Chinese sailors’ lives was influenced by the currents of history, including their presence on the Titanic to begin with. Labor strikes in Britain had left them without work, so their employer reassigned them to a North American route. The Titanic was supposed to take eight sailors as third-class passengers from Southampton, England, to their new ship in New York.

When the liner struck an iceberg late on April 14, the eight men acted quickly. Five made it into lifeboats, but the other three fell into the subzero water with hundreds of others as the ship was swallowed by the sea.

Two of those three sailors, Lee Ling and Len Lam, are believed to have died in the water. The third, Fang Lang, clung to a piece of debris and waited until a single lifeboat returned to search for survivors, making him among the last to be saved.

Credit…Photo Courtesy of the Fong Family

Fang’s rescue was the inspiration for the end of the movie “Titanic,” and was even portrayed in a deleted scene. (Mr. Cameron, an executive producer of “The Six,” is interviewed in the film.) But for decades after the sinking, the Chinese survivors were painted by the ship’s owner and the news media in a negative light, which may have been one reason their story remained unknown even to some of their descendants.

As the liner sank, four of the men reached a crowded, but not full, lifeboat that included J. Bruce Ismay, the Titanic’s owner, who was later criticized for not going down with his ship. Speaking to investigators after the disaster, Mr. Ismay described the Chinese men as stowaways. News reports also accused them of dressing as women so their rescue would be prioritized.

Though the filmmakers planned to report whatever they discovered, “it turns out we didn’t find any direct evidence of them doing things they were accused of and there was a much better explanation,” said Arthur Jones, the Shanghai-based director of the film.

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Entertainment

‘Dune’ and Princess Diana Biopic to Debut at a Starry Venice Movie Pageant

‘Dune’ and Princess Diana Biopic to Debut at a Starry Venice Film Festival

Five of the 21 films in the competition are directed by women, Barbera said – up from eight last year. “It may seem like a step backwards, but that’s only part of the story,” he added. Female directors appeared to be more affected by the coronavirus pandemic than their male counterparts, he said, adding, “I really hope they make a comeback.”

Bong Joon Ho, the director of “Parasite,” will chair the competition jury, which will include British actress Cynthia Erivo and Chloé Zhao, the director of “Nomadland,” which won the Golden Lion and the Oscar last year Movie.

This year’s festival may see the blockbusters return to Venice, but it will still be far from normal. Roberto Cicutto, the festival’s president, said at the press conference that the rules introduced last year to limit the spread of the coronavirus, such as:

According to Italian government regulations coming into effect on August 6th, anyone attending screenings or even eating indoors on the festival site must provide evidence that they have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, a recent negative test result or a certificate of recovery from the disease in the past six months.

Italy’s government announced the requirements this month as the number of viruses increased across the country. Health officials reported 4,742 new cases on Sunday. That’s well below this year’s high of over 25,000 new daily cases in March, but the surge in cases has caused concern in a country hit hard by the pandemic last year.

“This year we were hoping we could be more relaxed,” said Cicutto. “It is not so for the time being. But we continue to hope. “

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Entertainment

Cannes Movie Pageant: The Director of ‘Showgirls’ Takes on Lesbian Nuns

Cannes Film Festival: The Director of ‘Showgirls’ Takes on Lesbian Nuns

CANNES, France – Forgive them, Father, for they have sinned. Repeated! Creative! And wait to hear what they did with this statuette of the Virgin Mary.

The bad girls I mean are Benedetta and Bartolomea, two 17th century lesbian nuns who are the focus of the new drama Benedetta, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday. It’s a delicious, sacrilegious provocation from Paul Verhoeven, director of Basic Instinct, Showgirls and Elle, and at the age of 82, Verhoeven proves to be as playful as ever.

Based on the non-fiction book “Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Well in Renaissance Italy” by Judith C. Brown, the film follows Benedetta (Virginie Efira), a young nun who is so convinced that she is the bride of Christ she even dreams of a handsome shirtless Jesus who is flirting with her. And why shouldn’t he? Benedetta is a blonde bombshell who looks less like a pious nun from the 17th century and more like a disguised angel for Charlie, and when the pretty peasant woman Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia) arrives at the monastery, she also begins to close Benedetta’s eyes do.

Nun versus nun action happens a lot faster than you might expect as this monastery is run by a strict superior (Charlotte Rampling) and Benedetta is prone to visions that end with the manifestation of stigmata. But as her religious ecstasy grows more orgasmic, Benedetta eventually finds a steamy, more earthbound way to chase that high. “Jesus gave me a new heart,” she says to Bartolomea, baring a breast. “Feel it.” (Look, in the 17th century they played foreplay very differently.)

Once their sexual relationship heats up, these nuns find it easy to break their habits, but difficult to break. Finally, a statue of the Virgin Mary is carved into a sex toy and after Benedetta and Bartolomea have, uh, accepted it, the audience at the press screening in Cannes applauds the blasphemous nerve of the film. Verhoeven has always had the gift of making the ridiculous divine, and now the opposite is also true.

Even so, at the press conference for “Benedetta”, Verhoeven insisted that the scene wasn’t blasphemous at all.

“I don’t really see how to gossip about something that happened in 1625,” he said, offering excerpts from Brown’s book. “You can’t change history, you can’t change the things that happened, and I based them on things that happened.”

Maybe, but Verhoeven’s version still gives the truth a bit of a makeover, as Benedetta and Bartolomea always seem to wear eye makeup, foundation, and lipstick. While their faces are never bare, their bodies are often, and would you be surprised to learn that when these lithe nuns undress, they are as toned and well-groomed as a Playboy centerfold? God may be watching in the monastery, but Verhoeven’s gaze trumps everything.

If any spectator rang “Benedetta” because they were serving religious commentary with a side dish of cheesecake, Verhoeven was unmolested. “When people have sex, they generally undress,” said Verhoeven soberly. “I’m basically stunned how we don’t want to look at the reality of life.”

His actresses raised no concerns about their sex scene. “Everything was very happy when we undressed,” said Efira, while Patakia told the news media that when Verhoeven is directing, “You forget that you are naked.”

Even so, they have never lost sight of how much they need to push the boundaries.

“I remember reading the script to myself and thinking, ‘There isn’t a single normal scene,'” said Patakia. “There is always something destabilizing.” She added, “So I said yes right away.”

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Entertainment

A Movie Tries to Make a Distinction for Home Violence Survivors

A Film Tries to Make a Difference for Domestic Violence Survivors

In 2013, Tanisha Davis, a 26-year-old woman from Rochester, NY, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for killing her boyfriend and a beating the night he died. The judge agreed that she was a victim of domestic violence, but said that her response deserves no indulgence. “You handled the situation completely wrong,” he told her. “You could have left.”

In 2021, the same judge dismissed Davis on a new law that allowed domestic violence survivors to have more nuanced consideration in the courts, thanks in part to a documentary that helped shape their case.

It is not uncommon for documentary projects to have an impact on legal proceedings once they have found an audience and built public attention. But the film that Davis helped, “And So I Stayed,” wasn’t out yet – it wasn’t even finished – when filmmakers Natalie Pattillo and Daniel A. Nelson put together a short video for the court of them described their lives.

“You could see how strong the bonds she had with her family and the strength of the support she would have” if she were released, said Angela N. Ellis, one of her lawyers. The prosecutor and the judge both mentioned that they were watching the footage when they agreed to release her in March.

During her eight years in prison, Davis, 34, spoke to her son, who is now 15, every day. Now that she is at home, “I can just call him in the next room,” she said. “I can’t even explain this joy. I cry tears of joy all the time. “

For the filmmakers, it was an unexpectedly bright ending to an often heartbreaking and unsettling film. And So I Stayed, which premieres Saturday at the Brooklyn Film Festival (online until June 13), is personal for Pattillo, who is a survivor herself and whose sister was killed by a friend in 2010. The documentary grew out of her graduation project at Columbia Journalism School, where she met Nelson, her co-director.

“I didn’t realize how common it is that women are imprisoned for defending themselves or their children,” said Pattillo. “When I found out, I couldn’t stop reporting” to show how misunderstood and punitive these cases are within the judicial system.

The film’s first focus was on Kim Dadou Brown, who spent 17 years in prison for killing her violent boyfriend. She became a lawyer and traveled to Albany to brief New York lawmakers on the Domestic Violence Survivors Justice Act, the long-smoldering piece of legislation that eventually helped free Davis. Introduced in 2011, it was finally passed in 2019 after the Democrats flipped the state senate.

The law is one of the few laws in the country that gives judges more leniency in convicting victims of domestic violence who commit crimes against their perpetrators. It follows a growing, research-based understanding of the patterns of abusive relationships and the unique impact they have on the people in them.

“Leaving is the hardest part,” and the most dangerous, said Dadou Brown. “I thought all men were hitting and I stuck with mine so I knew which way the hitting would be coming.”

After Dadou Brown, a Rochester native and former healthcare worker, was paroled in 2008, she volunteered with survivors and crossed the state for rallies – even when money was tight because her felony status made it difficult to find jobs, she said. With 17 earrings (one for each year of imprisonment) and her signature false eyelashes, “she’s just a force,” said Pattillo. “It’s sheer tenacity. This is Kim. “

When the bill was passed, there was high spirits among its supporters and filmmakers. But they left their cameras on.

One case considered a surefire test of the crime was that of Nicole Addimando, a young mother of two in Poughkeepsie, NY, who fatally shot and killed Christopher Grover, her living friend and father of the children, in 2017. The film contains footage from police cameras the night she was found disoriented and driving around in the early hours of the morning with her 4 and 2 year olds in the backseat.

Her case made national headlines for the severity of the abuse she allegedly suffered: bites and blue eyes; Bruises and burns on her body, including during pregnancy, that have been documented by doctors; Rapes that Grover videotaped and uploaded to a porn site. In the film, a social worker calls it not just assault, but “sexual torture”. In 2020, Addimando was sentenced to 19 years of life imprisonment for second degree manslaughter; the judge contested the applicability of the Survivor Justice Act.

“I felt like we let them down,” said Dadou Brown, who was at the conviction.

In the film, Addimando can mainly be heard as the voice on the phone from prison; with a phone call, her mother tries to comfort her that she is at least still alive, that she has escaped being mistreated. “I’m still not free,” she replies, crying.

While there are no statewide statistics on the number of women incarcerated who have defended themselves against abusers, federal research suggests that around half of women in jail have experienced physical abuse or sexual violence, most from romantic partners. Black women are disproportionately harassed by both intimate partner violence and the judicial system: they are most often killed by a romantic partner and more likely to end up in prison, according to Bernadine Waller, a researcher at Adelphi University.

According to Nelson, the filmmaker, bringing stories like this to the screen is not about questioning the triggers, but rather about contextualizing the convicts. “The legal system forces you to create the perfect victim,” he said, “and a prosecutor will do everything in his power to characterize a survivor so that he does not fit in that box.” (In Addimando’s case, the judge said she “reluctantly consented” to the sexual abuse.)

Garrard Beeney, an Addimando attorney pending a decision on her appeal, said the investigation into the documentary into the judiciary’s handling of survivors was “a necessary but, in my opinion, not sufficient step” to change the process . Police, prosecutors and judges need training to think about domestic violence, he said. “We need this type of retraining more urgently than a gradual process of understanding.”

For Pattillo, who had two of her three children while filming, a few moments felt overwhelmingly raw. “There is always survivor’s fault when dealing with trauma,” she said, adding, referring to Addimando, “Why was I fine and not Nikki? Why don’t you take care of your children every night? “

But it is also “very healing,” she added, “to have helped survivors feel seen, heard and believed through this film.”

It originally ended on a dark note, at a vigil for Addimando. Then came the Davis case. The filmmakers were there on the day she was released from the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. Getting used to the outdoors again – during a pandemic – is still a challenge, Davis said last week. But she wanted her story to be told as a warning to the victims and as a beacon. The filmmakers plan to make the documentary available to the legal system – “a toolkit,” Nelson said on how to apply the new law.

Dadou Brown was also in Bedford Hills; she drove Davis’ family there. Her advocacy, said Dadou Brown, has become her life’s work. “I’m so happy to have so many dream moments,” she said. “Even when I come home from prison. My next dream will come true, to bring Nikki home. “

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Entertainment

Kevin Spacey Solid in Italian Movie After Being Sidelined within the U.S.

Kevin Spacey Cast in Italian Film After Being Sidelined in the U.S.

Kevin Spacey has been cast in a film in what is believed to be the first time since accusations of sexual assault against the actor started surfacing more than three years ago, prompting several court cases and unraveling his onscreen career.

The film, “L’uomo Che Disegno Dio” (or “The Man Who Drew God”), is an Italian feature directed by Franco Nero, who rose to fame via the 1966 spaghetti western “Django,” said Louis Nero, one of theproducers. Mr. Spacey, who plays a detective, is not a lead in the film, he said.

Vanessa Redgrave, who is married to the director, was initially said to have a role, but on Wednesday, a spokesman said she would not appear in the film.

TV and film producers started dropping Mr. Spacey from projects after the actor Anthony Rapp accused Mr. Spacey in 2017 of making unwanted sexual advances toward him in the 1980s, when he was 14 years old. More accusations followed, and several men have sued Mr. Spacey over their accounts of sexual assault and other misconduct.

Mr. Spacey, 61, was swiftly excluded from the Netflix political thriller “House of Cards”; replaced by Christopher Plummer in the Sony film “All the Money in the World”; and played Gore Vidal in a biopic that never saw the light of day. Less than a year after the accusations, he appeared in a supporting role for a finished movie called “Billionaire Boys Club,” but has not appeared in a television show or film since.

Louis Nero said the movie is about a blind artist, played by Franco Nero, who draws portraits of subjects by listening to their voices. The filmmakers hope to complete the project in September; Mr. Spacey has not yet filmed his role.

Asked about the sexual assault allegations, Louis Nero said, “I only know that he is a good actor — that’s it.”

Ms. Redgrave had been slated to play a woman who teaches the artist to read Braille, the producer said. But a spokesman for Ms. Redgrave said in a statement, “While there have been discussions about the possibility of her joining the cast, she will not appear in the film.”

A representative for Franco Nero did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday.

For years, Mr. Spacey has been embroiled in court proceedings over sexual assault and misconduct allegations against him. Mr. Rapp sued Mr. Spacey last year, along with an anonymous man who said in the lawsuit that Mr. Spacey sexually assaulted him when he was 14 years old after meeting him in an acting class in the 1980s. A judge ruled that the man would have to identify himself publicly if he wanted to continue to trial; his lawyers said the “unwanted attention” associated with revealing his identity would be “too much for him to bear” but suggested that they planned to appeal the ruling.

In 2018, Mr. Spacey was charged with the sexual assault of an 18-year-old man in Nantucket, Mass. Prosecutors dropped the case when the accuser invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to continue testifying.

A massage therapist sued Mr. Spacey in California in 2019, accusing him of groping and trying to kiss him before offering him oral sex during a massage. The accuser died unexpectedly ahead of the trial and the case was dismissed when his estate dropped the lawsuit.

Mr. Spacey, whose lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has denied the allegations made by the four men.

It is not uncommon for actors and filmmakers accused of sexual assault to find work in Europe after opportunities dry up in the United States. Roman Polanski, the director who fled the United States for Europe in 1978 while awaiting sentencing for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, won big at France’s equivalent of the Academy Awards last year. Woody Allen, who was accused of sexual assault by his daughter Dylan Farrow, has also reoriented himself to Europe since the #MeToo movement revived criticism of those working with him.

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Entertainment

Stereotypes Are Rife Amongst Asian and Pacific Islander Movie Roles, Research Finds

Stereotypes Are Rife Among Asian and Pacific Islander Film Roles, Study Finds

Of the 1,300 top-grossing films released from 2007 to 2019, only 44 starred an Asian or Pacific Islander – and a third of the roles went to a single actor, Dwayne Johnson, a study found.

In 2019 in particular, by the end of the film, more than a quarter of Asian or Pacific islanders had died, and more than 41 percent had “experienced a degradation.” Two-thirds of Asian or Pacific islanders mirrored stereotypes, and nearly 20 percent spoke either a non-English language or English with a non-American accent, according to a study by the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, funded by Amazon Studios and the UTA Foundation.

Analysis of the 1,300 films released Tuesday also found that only 3.4 percent of the films featured Asian or Pacific islanders in leading or coleading roles. (In relation to the US population, 7.1 percent identify themselves in this category.)

Other sobering statistics: Of 51,159 people speaking, only 5.9 percent were Asian, Asian-American, or Hawaiian or Pacific islanders. 39 percent of the films did not include a single Asian or Pacific islander.

The study also broke the statistics by gender: four Asian or Pacific islanders were cast in six lead roles, compared to 336 unique white male actors over the same period – a ratio of 84 white male actors per Asian or Pacific islander actress.

Only 13 percent of the roles of Asian or Pacific islanders in 2019 films were classified as “fully human.” The study’s authors defined that they have a full spectrum of relationships and don’t take on any role as a foreigner, buddy, or villain. (Johnson’s Dr. Bravestone character in “Jumanji: The Next Level” or Constance Wu’s character Destiny in “Hustlers” were considered good examples.)

The study, led by Nancy Wang Yuen, professor at Biola University, and Stacy L. Smith of the University of Southern California at Annenberg, also found that of the 600 highest-grossing films released from 2014 to 2019, only 15 were Asian and Pacific Islander characters abstained from identifying themselves as LGBTQ and only 26 Asian and Pacific islanders were shown with a physical, cognitive or communicative disability in the 500 films released from 2015 to 2019 with a physical, cognitive or communicative disability.

The researchers also looked at representation among filmmakers, finding that of the 1,447 credited directors in the sample, only 3.5 percent were Asian or Pacific islanders – and only three were women. (Jennifer Yuh Nelson won two awards for the Kung Fu Panda franchise and Loveleen Tandan for Slumdog Millionaire.) No Asian or Pacific Islander was the sole director of any of the 1,300 films in the study. (The research period ended before the publication of “Nomadland”, whose director Chloé Zhao won the Oscar for best director this year as the first woman of color, first Chinese woman and second woman.) Among the producers, 2.5 percent were Asian or Pacific islanders , as do 3.3 percent of casting directors.

The results of the study are due to the increasing hostility and violence against Asians in the United States. The nonprofit Stop AAPI Hate announced in March that nearly 3,800 anti-Asian hate incidents were reported over the course of a year during the pandemic, mostly against women.

“Whether through the lack of API characters or through stereotypical representations, entertainment can be a means of perpetuating inaccurate and dehumanizing portrayals of the API community,” the report concludes.

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Entertainment

A French Monument Stays Each Bit as Grand on Movie

A French Monument Remains Every Bit as Grand on Film

Mr. Ivernel listed three scenes in the film that were shot in the Palais Garnier: the arrival of the Russian troops, which was shot in the large foyer; a conversation between Nureyev and a French dancer, recorded on the roof of Garnier, with a panoramic view of Paris; and footage from the event hall, filmed from the stage. The shooting of “The White Crow” coincided with the opera’s glamorous annual fundraising gala, to which Mr Ivernel was invited.

Overall, the shoot was a “wonderful experience,” said Ivernel. Before filming, the team was allowed to spend three half days backstage with the Paris Opera Ballet, where, interestingly, Nureyev became the ballet director in 1983. They met dancers, watched rehearsals, and visited the costume-making studios where tutus hang from the ceiling. It was “all very useful to the director,” said Ivernel, “because it gave him a much better sense of what it’s like to be a solo dancer.”

There was only one small misstep, recalled Marie Hoffmann, who is responsible for leasing public spaces in the opera. While the crew was filming at the opera house, Mr Fiennes, who plays a ballet master, settled in a recently restored armchair, a historic armchair that is usually kept behind a protective barrier. “We asked him as politely as possible to give up his seat,” recalls Ms. Hoffmann.

Filming in the opera is a complex process. Prior to the pandemic, shootings had to take place at night when there were no more performances or visitors, and nighttime affairs that ran from 11 p.m. to 9 a.m. when the premises were cleaned for morning tourists.

Since the building is a listed building, every corner is guarded and protected. As in Versailles and other French heritage sites, equipment cannot be placed directly on the floor: there must be a protective layer such as a strip of carpet. There are also weight restrictions on camera equipment, and crews are followed by security guards everywhere.

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Entertainment

Inside Husavik’s Oscar Bid for a ‘Eurovision Track Contest’ Movie Anthem

Inside Husavik's Oscar Bid for a 'Eurovision Song Contest' Film Anthem

HUSAVIK, Iceland – In the back room of an empty seaside hotel one Monday, a group of locals anxiously gathered around a computer to broadcast live the 93rd Academy Awards nominations, waiting to see if their campaign was successful.

The good news came shortly after 1 p.m. and residents heard the name of their town say again in an American accent: “Husavik”, a song from the Netflix movie “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga”. was nominated for the best original song.

The song takes its name from this tiny coastal town that is also home to the main characters in the film, and residents have been working for weeks to give the song an Oscar nomination.

“I’m sick of it,” when I heard the news, said Orlygur Orlygsson, 37, one of the activists gathered at the hotel. “The film gave Husavik worldwide recognition, and we wanted to do the same for the song.” Still, he was shocked by the nomination, he said.

Orlygsson is possibly the most famous fan of “Fire Saga” among the 2,300 people who live in this port city on the north coast of Iceland. He owns a cafe called Ja Ja Ding Dong, named after a silly song from the movie. And in February, when “Husavik” was one of the 15 titles on the academy’s longlist for best song, Orlygsson launched the campaign to convince members of the academy to nominate him.

“Fire Saga” tells the story of two musicians from Husavik, played by Will Ferrell and Rachel McAdams. The couple – who are “probably not” brother and sister – are selected by default to represent Iceland in the Eurovision Song Contest after a ship exploded with more prominent Icelandic singers.

Let’s go into the world of “neon lights and billboards”, although in the end they find that there is no place like home. “Husavik” is their Eurovision act, the triumphant climax of the film.

When the film hit Netflix in June, critics weren’t impressed. Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in her review for the New York Times: “This covered farce whips slapstick and cheese into an authentic soufflé of tastelessness.”

But fans of the Eurovision Song Contest, which draws 200 million television viewers each year, embraced the film in a pandemic year when the actual competition was canceled for the first time since its inception in 1956. And once the residents of Husavik started their online campaign, thousands of these fans spread the word on social media.

The campaign shows a fictional Husavik resident named Oskar Oskarsson, who raves about the city in a video published on the campaign website, in which only “another Oskar” is missing.

In the ironic video, a woman pretends that a fish is an Oscar statue and residents leave gifts to elves to help with the campaign. “People in Husavik are very excited,” said the campaign website.

The video was viewed up to 200,000 times on YouTube and social media platforms, according to the organizers.

The actor in the video is Sigurdur Illugason, a local house painter who is now performing in the musical “Little Shop of Horrors” in the Husavik Theater Club for a masked audience of 50 people.

Kristjan Magnusson, the mayor of Husavik, said the main value of the campaign is to lift the spirits of the people in the city. “The fun of getting together for a big project is the most important thing,” he said. “The rest is a bonus.”

Molly Sanden, who sings for McAdams’ character on the track, praised the Husavik people for gathering behind the song. “The campaign shows that the city has the heart and the spirit that the song is about,” she said in a telephone interview from her home in Sweden.

She said she hoped to visit Husavik once the pandemic is over to see the mountains, northern lights and seagulls described in the song lyrics.

The lyrics could apply to most of Iceland’s coastal communities, and the demo of the song was written with Husavik as a placeholder before the film’s director and producers visited Iceland to decide on a location for their film.

“I first heard a demo of the song when we were driving around Iceland looking for locations,” said Leifur Dagfinnsson, who runs the local production company True North that worked on Fire Saga.

The original plan, he said, was to find a town in the southern half of the island near the capital, Reykjavik, in order to save money on transportation. Husavik is closer to the Arctic Circle and has never been the setting for an international film production.

But the strong demonstration with Husavik was the decisive factor in favor of the northern city.

“Husavik is easier to pronounce than other Icelandic city names,” said Dagfinnsson. That gave him a clear textual advantage over Stykkisholmur (Stikk-is-hohlm-ur), a town he said “made sense from a budgetary point of view”.

Husavik has more whale watching boats than fishing vessels, and unlike the town in Fire Saga, there are half a dozen bars.

Tourism is the city’s main industry, and part of the reason a group of adults had time to campaign for the song is the widespread underemployment created by the pandemic. Residents hope that tourists will sing the city’s name in their car’s GPS as soon as Iceland allows vaccinated foreign visitors.

Leonardo Piccione, an Italian artist who lives in Husavik, noted that the tiny town had linked “two of the greatest television events in the world” and added, “I think you can work with that.”

The activists hope to build on the popularity of the Oscar nomination to open a Eurovision museum next to Café Ja Ja Ding Dong with memorabilia from Icelandic contestants who have never won the competition. And of course they will post more Oskar Oskarsson videos when the Academy members start voting next month.

It is widely predicted that “Speak Now” from “One Night in Miami” or Golden Globe winner “Io Si (Seen)” from “The Life Ahead” will win the best original song. Also nominated are “Fight for You” from “Judas and the Black Messiah” and “Hear My Voice” from “The Trial of the Chicago 7”, the third Netflix film in this category.

Win or lose, “Husavik” is now part of the urban fabric. The local soccer team, the Volsungs, play the pre-game soundtrack, and the children’s choir regularly plays the Icelandic portion of the song.

Fire Saga executive producer Savan Kotecha co-wrote the lyrics for the song using Google Translate for the Icelandic lines and Google Street View to get a feel for the city.

“It never occurred to me that the song would have a special meaning for the people there,” he said in an interview. “Now we really want to win for Husavik.”

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‘Avatar’ as soon as once more highest-grossing movie of all time on the field workplace

'Avatar' once again highest-grossing film of all time at the box office

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Source: Walt Disney Studios

“Avatar” is once again the highest-grossing film of all time.

At the weekend, James Cameron’s science fiction epic was republished in China and so far collected in ticket sales that “Avengers: Endgame” was overtaken for the record.

“Avatar” became the world’s best-selling release of all time in 2010 when it took over from Cameron’s “Titanic”. In 2019, Avengers: Endgame won the title with grossing US $ 2.797 billion.

As of Saturday, “Avatars” gross box office sales exceeded $ 2.802 billion, enabling him to regain his crown.

“These two titans of cinema have been dueling at the Olympics box office for years,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. “As ‘Avatar’ takes the crown again, the importance of the cinema experience, both in terms of its cultural impact and, of course, its massive source of income, comes more into focus.”

Endgame directors Joe and Anthony Russo used social media to congratulate Cameron.

“Give the glove back to you,” they wrote in the mail.

Originally part of the new releases approved by the Chinese film bureau in 2020, the 2009 sci-fi epic stayed in Disney’s vault during the ongoing pandemic.

While China has regained some ticket sales in recent months, the introduction of new blockbuster features has slowed in the wake of the Chinese New Year celebrations. Adding “Avatar” to its theaters is a way to drive traffic and give operators the much-needed boost when no new movies are released.

“We are proud to have reached this major milestone, but Jim and I are delighted to have the film back in theaters in these unprecedented times and we would like to thank our Chinese fans for their support,” said producer Jon Landau. “We’re working hard on the next Avatar movies and look forward to sharing the sequel to this epic story for years to come.”

The first new film in the Avatar series is due to be released in 2022. It will be one of five to appear in the next decade. Disney recently acquired Avatar, despite the fact that the film was previously licensed to build property in the Animal Kingdom theme park in Florida.

In 2019 Disney signed a contract to purchase entertainment goods from 20th Century Fox, including James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

Disney currently owns the five best films of all time and eight of the ten best films. In particular, “Titanic,” currently ranked third, was a joint production by Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox. The other films are “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”, “Avengers: Infinity War”, 2019’s live-action remake of “The Lion King”, “Avengers” and “Frozen II”.