Monday, November 12

• Diving Bell & Butterfly wins AFI Fest

  The biopic, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film at the AFI Fest this weekend, fueling the fire for an awards compaign.

  Julian Schnabel's portrait of the French Elle editor who was completely paralyzed at the age of 43 after suffering a devastating stroke and who then wrote a book by communicating through blinking his eyelid has been getting buzz as a dark horse candidate for Best Picture in the impending awards race.

  Although completely in French, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was disqualified from competing as Best Foreign Language Film because of its American director and producers. We're not sure how the Academy will or will not warm to a French language movie for a mainstream category. But let's just say, we've seen it and we think it deserves any and every nomination it's up for.

  Source: AFI.

  
  
  

  The Diving Bell & the Butterfly trailer

  The true story Jean-Dominique Beauby

  Posted 11/12/2007 by Heather

  Julian Schnabel

Tuesday, May 29

• Cannes wrap-up

  The 60th annual Cannes Film Festival wrapped up this weekend, with a controversial list of winners emerging.

  The Romanian drama by director Cristian Mungiu 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, about a woman trying to get an abortion during the last days of communist Romania, won the Palme d'Or.

  The runner-up Grand Prix award went to a French-Japanese art flick called The Mourning Forest by Naomi Kawase.

  The only Americans to receive official note were director Gus Van Sant, who was awarded the special 60th anniversary prize for his teenage skateboard drama Paranoid Park, and Julian Schnabel for his direction of the French-made The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

  Higher profile films like Michael Moore's Sicko and Michael Winterbottom's A Mighty Heart did not take away any awards.

  
  

  Posted 05/29/2007 by Heather

  Julian Schnabel | Cristian Mungiu | The Mourning Forest