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    London Film Festival’s Best Picture Honor Goes To “Chevalier”; Blanchett Earns Career Award

    By SHOOTUpdated:No Comments1688 Views
    Actors Cate Blanchett, left, and Topher Grace pose for photographers upon arrival at the premiere of the film 'Truth', as part of the London film festival in London, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2015. (Photo by Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP)

    By Jill Lawless

    LONDON (AP) --

    Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari's comedy of manhood "Chevalier" was named best picture at the London Film Festival on Saturday, during a ceremony that honored Cate Blanchett with a major career award.

    It was a fitting finale to a festival that sought to showcase the work of talented women both onscreen and behind the camera.

    Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski, who headed a prize jury that included actors Chiwetel Ejiofor and Kristin Scott Thomas, said Tsangari's film about a battle of egos among six men on a yacht was "both a hilarious comedy and a deeply disturbing statement on the condition of Western humanity."

    Tsangari — whose film beat much-praised contenders including child-soldier saga "Beasts of No Nation" and searing Holocaust drama "Son of Saul" — thanked "all of the strong women who have inspired me — and all of the strong men."

    During a black-tie dinner ceremony at London's 17th-century Banqueting House, Blanchett was awarded the British Film Institute Fellowship by her "Lord of the Rings" co-star Ian McKellen, in recognition of a career that has already netted her two Oscars, for "The Aviator" and "Blue Jasmine."

    The award was preceded by a compilation of clips from Blanchett's 20-year film career, interspersed with praise from directors including Peter Jackson, Todd Haynes and Richard Eyre.

    "It's a cross between an obituary and a tribute," Blanchett said. "I feel like I've died and gone to heaven."

    Blanchett said she'd never thought of her work as career, or even a choice. Acting, she said, "chose me."

    Blanchett starred in two films at the festival: Haynes' 1950s-set lesbian romance "Carol" and James Vanderbilt's "Truth," in which she plays TV news producer Mary Mapes, who was fired over a story about former U.S. President George W. Bush's military service.

    American director Robert Eggers' Pilgrim horror film "The Witch" won the festival's first-feature prize. Jennifer Peedom's Himalayan study "Sherpa" was named best documentary and "An Old Dog's Diary" by Shai Heredia and Shumona Goel took the short-film trophy.

    The 59th annual London festival aimed to put strong women center stage, opening with Sarah Gavron's political drama "Suffragette" and featuring 46 female-directed films among its 240 features.

    The 12-day event brought a slew of awards-worthy female performances, including Blanchett and Rooney Mara as clandestine lovers in "Carol," Brie Larson as a mother in an extreme situation in "Room," and Maggie Smith as a redoubtable eccentric in "The Lady in the Van."

    Founded in 1957 to show the best of the year's world cinema to a British audience, the London Film Festival has boosted its profile in recent years with bigger movies, more glittering stars and prizes to boost emerging awards-season contenders.

    Its prize-winners have a strong track record at the Oscars. The last two London winners, Andrey Zvyagintsev's "Leviathan" and Pawlikowski's "Ida," faced off in this year's foreign-language Academy Award race. "Ida" won.

    The festival wraps up Sunday with Danny Boyle's "Steve Jobs," starring Michael Fassbender as the Apple founder.

    Category:News
    Tags:Cate BlanchettChevalierLondon Film Festival



    Review: Rachel Morrison Makes Feature Directorial Debut With “The Fire Inside”

    Monday, December 23, 2024

    "The Fire Inside," about boxer Claressa "T-Rex" Shields, is not your standard inspirational sports drama, even if it feels like it for the first half of the movie.

    There's the hopeless dream, the difficult home life, the blighted community, the devoted coach, the training montages, the setbacks and, against all odds, the win. We've seen this kind of story before, you might think, and you'd be right. But then the movie pulls the rug out from under you: The victory is not the end. "The Fire Inside," directed by Rachel Morrison and written by Barry Jenkins, is as much about what happens after the win. It's not always pretty or inspirational, but it is truthful, and important.

    Sports dramas can be just as cliche as fairy tales, with the gold medal and beautiful wedding presented as a happy ending. We buy into it time and time again for obvious reasons, but the idea of a happy ending at all, or even an ending, is almost exclusively for the audience. We walk away content that someone has found true love or achieved that impossible goal after all that work. For the subject, however, it's a different proposition; Life, and all its mundanities, disappointments and hardships, continues after all. And in the world of sports, that high moment often comes so young that it might be easy to look at the rest of the journey as a disappointing comedown.

    Claressa Shields, played by Ryan Destiny in the film, was only 17 when she went to the 2012 London Olympics. Everything was stacked against her, including the statistics: No American woman had ever won an Olympic gold medal in the sport before. Her opponents had years on her. She was still navigating high school in Flint, Michigan, and things on the home front were volatile and lacking. Food was sometimes scarce... Read More

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