It’s been an eventful week for directors Lucy Walker and Grant Orchard as both have seen their short films not only earn Academy Award nominations on Tuesday morning (see separate SHOOT Oscars rundown), but also that evening garner jury prizes at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City. Their parallel universe also includes Walker’s film, The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom, having been produced by the company that handles her for commercials and branded content, bicoastal Supply & Demand Integrated, while Orchard’s short, A Morning Stroll, too was produced by his spotmaking roost, Studio AKA in London.
The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom picked up the Sundance Jury Prize in Short Film, Non-Fiction. A visual haiku and a story of survival, this short film documents the resurrection of life in Japan following the triple disaster of a devastating earthquake which triggered a tsunami as well as a nuclear radiation crisis.
“I think the film is about life and death and truth and beauty,” said Walker upon accepting the award. She was flustered by the remarkable events of the day, “I got nominated for an Academy Award and I got carded here,” she joked.
Walker’s short was shot by DP Aaron Phillips, who’s handled by The Skouras Agency, and edited by Aki Mizutani of Cutters Editorial.
As for A Morning Stroll, it won the Sundance Jury Prize in Animated Short Film. The short centers on a New Yorker walking past a chicken on his morning stroll, leaving us to wonder which one is the real city slicker.
The other five short film Jury Prize winners at Sundance were:
o Fishing Without Nets /USA, which took the Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking. (Director: Cutter Hodierne, Screenwriters: Cutter Hodierne, John Hibey) — A story of pirates in Somalia, told from the perspective of the pirates themselves. Said the Short Film Jury of the film, “By approaching a story of epic scope with an intimate perspective, this visually stunning film creates a rare, inside point of view that humanizes a global story.”
o The Black Balloon / U.S.A. won The Jury Prize in Short Film, U.S. Fiction. (Directors: Benny Safdie, Josh Safdie) — The Black Balloon strays from the herd and experiences what life as an individual is like. He explores New York City in the deepest way, seeing all of its characters.
o The Return (Kthimi) / Kosovo copped the Jury Prize in Short Film, International Fiction. (Director: Blerta Zeqiri, Screenwriter: Shefqet Gjocaj) — A man comes back from a Serb prison to his wife and son. Much has changed since he was declared missing and continuing where they left off four years ago may not be as easy as it seems.
o The Arm / U.S.A. won the Special Jury Award for Comedic Storytelling. (Directors and screenwriters: Brie Larson, Sarah Ramos, Jessie Ennis) — In an attempt to keep up with social pressure in a technologically advanced world, Chance starts a texting relationship with Genevieve, a girl he meets at a yogurt shop.
o Robots of Brixton / United Kingdom earned the Special Jury Award for Animation Direction. (Director: Kibwe Tavares) — The trials and tribulations of young robots surviving at the sharp end of inner city life, living the predictable existence of a populous hemmed in by poverty, disillusionment and mass unemployment.
Select company
These seven shorts are in select company, pointed out Trevor Groth, director of programming for the Sundance Film Festival.
“The explosion of interest in the short form is evidenced by the record number of short films submitted to this year’s Festival,” said Groth. “Our shorts programming team as well as audiences at the Festival have been struck by the depth of quality and uncompromised voices present in these stories from around the world. Our esteemed jury selected seven winners from a field of 64 that represent a talented group of artists who are sure to continue pushing the limits of creative filmmaking.”
Daniel Craig Embraced Openness For Role In Director Luca Guadagnino’s “Queer”
Daniel Craig is sitting in the restaurant of the Carlyle Hotel talking about how easy it can be to close yourself off to new experiences.
"We get older and maybe out of fear, we want to control the way we are in our lives. And I think it's sort of the enemy of art," Craig says. "You have to push against it. Whether you have success or not is irrelevant, but you have to try to push against it."
Craig, relaxed and unshaven, has the look of someone who has freed himself of a too snug tuxedo. Part of the abiding tension of his tenure as James Bond was this evident wrestling with the constraints that came along with it. Any such strains, though, would seem now to be completely out the window.
Since exiting that role, Craig, 56, has seemed eager to push himself in new directions. He performed "Macbeth" on Broadway. His drawling detective Benoit Blanc ("Halle Berry!") stole the show in "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery." And now, Craig gives arguably his most transformative performance as the William S. Burroughs avatar Lee in Luca Guadagnino's tender tale of love and longing in postwar Mexico City, "Queer."
Since the movie's Venice Film Festival premiere, it's been one of the fall's most talked about performances — for its explicit sex scenes, for its vulnerability and for its extremely un-007-ness.
"The role, they say, must have been a challenge or 'You're so brave to do this,'" Craig said in a recent interview alongside Guadagnino. "I kind of go, 'Eh, not really.' It's why I get up in the morning."
In "Queer," which A24 releases Wednesday in theaters, Craig again plays a well-traveled, sharply dressed, cocktail-drinking man. But the similarities with his most famous role stop there. Lee is an American expat living in 1950s... Read More