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Today the nominations for the David di Donatello Awards (Italian Oscars) have been announced and I am ashamed to say that I’ve only seen 2 of these movies and I’m Italian! So I thought that in the next few weeks I’ll try to catch up with European cinema.
I’ll post the above-the-line nominations today and in a few days I’ll post the Césars and then the Goyas. Maybe let’s share some thoughts about the best European films of 2021 and let’s discuss if they received their dues during awards season!
Have you seen any of these movies or are you interested in watching them? Toni Servillo received double nominations because he’s freaking everywhere this year (he’s lead in “Ariaferma” as well!). I also wonder if Filippo Scotti will snatch best actor out of Elio Germano or Toni Servillo, who have won 4 times each already. Somehow I doubt that, but “The Hand of God” is going to steamroll everywhere else.
I’m happy that “Il Cattivo Poeta” got best first feature nomination, but I was sure that Sergio Castellitto would receive a nomination for portraying Gabriele D’Annunzio (an important poet that we study in school). That movie was a bit too conventional but I liked seeing the interiors of Il Vittoriale, D’Annunzio estate on Lake Garda.
Best Film
“The Inner Cage” (Ariaferma) by Leonardo Di Costanzo
“The Hand of God” (È stata la mano di Dio) by Paolo Sorrentino
“Ennio: The Maestro” (Ennio) by Giuseppe Tornatore
“Freaks Out” by Gabriele Mainetti
“Qui rido io” (The King of Laughter) by Mario MartoneBest Director
Leonardo Di Costanzo (The Inner Cage – Ariaferma)
Gabriele Mainetti (Freaks Out)
Mario Martone (The King of Laughter – Qui rido io)
Paolo Sorrentino (The Hand of God – È stata la mano di Dio)
Giuseppe Tornatore (Ennio)Best Actor
Elio Germano (America Latina)
Silvio Orlando (The Inner Cage – Ariaferma)
Franz Rogowski (Freaks Out)
Filippo Scotti (The Hand of God – È stata la mano di Dio)
Toni Servillo (The King of Laughter – Qui rido io)Best Actress
Aurora Giovinazzo (Freaks Out)
Miriam Leone (Diabolik)
Maria Nazionale (The King of Laughter – Qui rido io)
Rosa Palasciano (Giulia)
Swamy Rotolo (A Chiara)Best Supporting Actor
Pietro Castellitto (Freaks Out)
Fabrizio Ferracane (The Inner Cage – Ariaferma)
Valerio Mastandrea (Diabolik)
Eduardo Scarpetta (The King of Laughter – Qui rido io)
Toni Servillo (The Hand of God – È stata la mano di Dio)Best Supporting Actress
Susy Del Giudice (I fratelli De Filippo)
Cristiana Dell’Anna (The King of Laughter – Qui rido io)
Luisa Ranieri (The Hand of God – È stata la mano di Dio)
Teresa Saponangelo (The Hand of God – È stata la mano di Dio)
Vanessa Scalera (A Girl Returned – L’Arminuta)Best Original Screenplay
A Chiara
The Inner Cage (Ariaferma)
The Hand of God (È stata la mano di Dio)
Freaks Out
The King of Laughter (Qui rido io)Best Adapted Screenplay
A Girl Returned (L’Arminuta)
Diabolik
Una Femmina: The Code of Silence (Una femmina)
The Catholic School (La scuola cattolica)
The Land of the Sons (La terra dei figli)
Three Floors (Tre piani)Best First Feature
Reply
Francesco Costabile (Una Femmina: The Code of Silence – Una femmina) Gianluca Jodice (Il cattivo poeta)
Maura Delpero (Maternal)
Laura Samani (Small Body – Piccolo corpo)
Alessio Rigo de Righi, Matteo Zoppis (The Tale of King Crab – Re Granchio)A Chiara deserved more than a lone screenplay nomination.
It got Best Actress for Swamy Rotolo, too. I have to catch up with that (and “A Ciambra” too). Have you seen them? I think that Jonas Carpignano being half American and half Italian is an interesting case study. His first movie was produced by Martin Scorsese!
ReplyCopy URLIt got Best Actress for Swamy Rotolo, too. I have to catch up with that (and “A Ciambra” too). Have you seen them? I think that Jonas Carpignano being half American and half Italian is an interesting case study. His first movie was produced by Martin Scorsese!
I missed the actress nod!
I haven’t seen A Ciambra. It would have been great to see A Chiara show up in directing personally because I really thought it was stood out the most in the family. Carpignano really captured a very “familiarly real” tone quite well.
ReplyCopy URLSolidarity with the striking writers. Pay them the wages they are owed for bringing us the content we are all on here because of!
Great Freedom is the best European film of 2021. I also loved Benedetta and Lamb
I hated both “Benedetta” and “Lamb”. Regarding the former, I’m so tired of lesbian period dramas. They’re getting repetitive. Charlotte Rampling was awesome, though. “Lamb” was interesting, but it left me wanting something more.
The best European movie of 2021 for me was “The Worst Person in the World”. The Academy got it right.
My biggest recommendations:
Azor
El Planeta
France
Quien Lo Impide
VortexOthers you could check out if you have time:
Benedetta
The Girl and the Spider
Întregalde
Official Competition
What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?I’ve only seen “Azor” and “Benedetta” from this list. About “Azor”: it’s interesting how European movies are getting more and more international. This movie is set in Argentina with francophone and South American actors. I think that this will probably be very common in the next few years, because the world is so interconnected these days and people often live in different countries throughout their life (especially in Europe, but not only that).
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This post was found to be inappropriate by the moderators and has been removed.I’ve seen maybe 3 out of them all: Sorrentino’s of course, Freaks Out (a mix between Fellini and Tarantino), and Ariaferma (boring but one of the actors is a classmate of mine at National Cinema School, so don’t tell him I said that lol)
I watched “Ariaferma” last night. It’s a bit too bleak for my taste but the performances are good, especially Toni Servillo. Who’s your classmate, Fantaccini? The soundtrack was incredibly distracting. I found it very out of place, with those drums and those clapping, plus a Greek song coming out of nowhere in an Italian movie.
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This post was found to be inappropriate by the moderators and has been removed.
This post was found to be inappropriate by the moderators and has been removed.I agree with you, plus I heard from a few insiders that it was David President’s favorite movie of the year hence the 11 nominations
“Ariaferma” reminded me in places of Dino Buzzati’s “The Tartar Steppe” (Il Deserto dei Tartari), a great Italian novel where nothing much happens. From THR’s review of “Ariaferma”: “The fact that The Inner Cage never quite hits the suspense levels one anticipates, keeping the tension at a long, slow burn throughout, may make it a tough sell abroad after its out-of-competition premiere in Venice”. Basically, Americans would expect the tension between guards and inmates to explode in some obvious way (an assault or a breakout), but that’s what this movie is about in the end: that the guard is the milkman’s son. I just wish that this film was as powerful as that novel.
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