Film Awards Research Articles

Domestic Markets and International Podiums: Questions of Canonization of East-Central European Films from 1989 Till Now

This article explores the evolving visibility and recognition of post-1989 East-Central European (ECE) films within the broader framework of canonization. Focusing on Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Romania, it examines the local and European canonization of films from these countries through performances at leading European film festivals (Berlin, Cannes, Venice) and domestic film awards, alongside discussions on the films’ domestic and European theatrical distribution. Contrary to the assumption of inherent marginalization, the article argues that the recognition and visibility of ECE films are shaped by multifaceted factors and trends. While ECE films consistently feature at major European ­festivals and often transition their cultural prestige into successful European distribution, disparities in representation persist both across countries and between international and domestic recognition. International festivals tend to prioritize established auteurs, complicating the evolution of preferences and canons. Nevertheless, since the 2000s, a gradual transformation has emerged, introducing new transnational auteurs and shifting canonization dynamics. The relationship between domestic popularity and international success is significant but complex. Domestic acclaim does not guarantee international recognition, and vice versa.

The Lesson and/or the master: Alex MacKeith and writing today

In this interview, award-winning musical comedian Alex MacKeith and I examine his screenplay for Alice Troughton’s new film The Lesson (2023). MacKeith goes over his creative process, from his incorporation of some of his experiences as a tutor following university to his development of individual characters, and from his project’s growth and improvement across successive drafts to the kinds of affirmation that he gets from his work in musical comedy in comparison to his work in scriptwriting. We go on to discuss his magnificent central character: the writer J. M. Sinclair (Richard E. Grant). The film follows Liam (Daryl McCormack), a young writer hired to prepare Sinclair’s son (Stephen McMillan) for Oxford, but as it unfolds, we learn, alongside Liam, about Sinclair’s personal and public lives. Sinclair’s wife Hélène (Julie Delpy) hired Liam specifically to investigate him. A living cliché, Sinclair is claiming credit for work that really belongs to his deceased son Felix (Joseph Meurer). For this film, MacKeith was longlisted for a British Independent Film Award. It has been described by Stephen King as being ‘[c]old, smart, and suspenseful’ and it is a New York Times’s Critics Pick. In this climate, when conversations about originality, notably the place of artificial intelligence in creative and critical projects, are all the rage, this interview’s exploration of authorship, intellectual property and retirement for creatives is especially timely.

Entrevista a Antxón Gómez: La huella de la dirección artística

Antxón Gómez is a Spanish artistic director and production designer, both for advertising and film. His beginning in the advertising field dates back to 1978 and his first cinematographic collaboration was with the film Tres por cuatro (Manuel Iborra, 1982), although his definitive introduction into the medium as an artistic director occurred thanks to the Spanish film director and screenwriter, Bigas Luna, with whom he worked in Huevos de oro (1993). His love for the arts and collecting marks his projects and he has obtained recognition from the Barcelona Film Awards in 2006 for his work in Salvador (Puig Antich) (Manuel Huerga, 2006), the Goya Award for Best Artistic Direction in 2009 for Che: Part one (Steven Soderbergh, 2008) or the European Film Academy (EFA) Award, for Best Production Design for his work for Dolor y gloria (Pedro Almodóvar, 2019).

The Representation of Women in Saudi Film: The Case of Amra and the Second Marriage

Female representation in film continues to be a new area of research in Gulf countries, particularly Saudi Arabia. Mahmoud Sabbagh, the writer and director of the Netflix film Amra and the Second Marriage, has portrayed Saudi women in various ways. His work was recognized with the Best Film award at the Cinematic Festival of Film Across Three Continents in Milan. The current study examines female stereotypes as portrayed in this film, employing a mixed-method approach of quantitative content analysis and qualitative thematic analysis. The study’s conceptual framework draws on representation theory and feminist theory to explore the depiction of female stereotypes in this digital Saudi film. A total of 20 females were recruited in this study from the online film. The findings revealed that Amra and the Second Marriage represented twenty Saudi female characters, with half of them being mature adults. Approximately 40% of these characters were portrayed as modern, and around 35% were depicted as belonging to the upper class. Less than half of the characters were shown without wearing the hijab. The film also depicted several stereotypes of Saudi women as weak and sacrificial, reinforcing negative stereotypes about Saudi culture as traditional and masculine. Furthermore, the movie showcased both ‘religious’ and ‘gossip’ stereotypes that mirror aspects of Saudi culture. Interestingly, the film also explored the theme of ‘corrupt women,’ a less common portrayal in Saudi culture.

Focus on Ukraine: The politics of curating short film and creating a global community

Founded in 1997, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur is Switzerland’s largest and most important short film festival. It is also one of the most renowned events of its kind worldwide, whose prize winners qualify for prestigious awards consideration, including for Oscar, BAFTA and European film awards. With roughly 17,000 visitors and 800 accredited industry guests, it is a popular festival for the cinephile audience as well as an important hub for the domestic and international short film scene, and it offers a wide range of training and networking opportunities geared specifically towards short film professionals. This article outlines how the festival posits that the short film can be viewed politically, as a way to build an international community of filmmakers, curators and audiences. Taking the festival’s longstanding ties with Ukrainian filmmakers as an illustrative example, the authors delineate how curating short film is a practice of caring for cinema and communities.

The Inception of the Film Adaptations Based on the Novels, in the Sri Lankan Cinema

Filmmakers often pursue other source materials to discover inspiration for their narratives and create feature filmmaking in an important way on true events and fictional stories. A film adaptation is a cinematic work, adapted from a work of fiction or nonfiction. Common fiction source materials include novels, short stories, stage plays, radio plays, television series, comics, or video games, while nonfiction sources are memoirs, biographies, or works of journalism. International filmmaking regularly uses an existing work of art as inspiration for their art, and the Film Awards even have an entire screenwriting category devoted to film adaptations such as Best Adapted Screenplay Award. In Sri Lanka, the film adaptation has been practiced for seven decades to date, and its inception is marked in 1953 with the film ‘Kela Handa’ alias "The Wild Moon" based on the novel of the same name first published in 1933. There are 10 film adaptations from 1953 to 1959 and seems ‘Kela Handa’ has created a trend-setting introduction. Where Sri Lankan Cinema has a span of 1350 locally produced films released since 1947 to date, the film adaptations are over 100 in the list. ‘Kela Handa’ adapts the best-selling novel of the same name and reflects the interplay between the two mediums, without compromising the prominent egos of the Sri Lankan first filmmaker and the Sri Lankan best-selling novelist.

‘A normal life’: Karel Tuytschaever on the dramas of Easy Tiger

In this interview, actor–director Karel Tuytschaever and I examine his first feature film, a critical-creative project entitled Easy Tiger (2022). In it, the meeting between a psychologist (Mickaël Pelissier) and his client (Casper Wubbolts), a deaf man, proves revelatory for them both. The client speaks of a dying man with whom he was deeply in love, which leads him to explore his feelings about the possibility of finding true love. These confessions prompt the psychologist to re-evaluate his relationship with himself and with the world. Tuytschaever and I discuss how he brings together his roles as a director, an actor and an academic, before examining the film and how he communicates his complex vision with us and with his actors. Much of the film involves stillness, and it unfolds in silence. We discuss how Tuytschaever speaks volumes with it, making the film of significant interest for both hearing and other/non-hearing people. Easy Tiger received an Honorable Mention as Indie Feature Film in the Paris Film Awards; and it has earned Best Queer, Best Directing and Best International Film awards at the SENSEI FilmFest. This interview advances scholarship by introducing us to Tuytschaever’s critical work and by examining how it informs his artistic project.

An Educational Corpus Based Exploration of Contemporary Hungarian Cinema: Lessons of the 2021 Hungarian University Film Awards

This paper explores the origins, pedagogical aims and framework of the Hungarian University Film Award (HUFA) incorporating the personal experience of its author who participated in the coordination of various stages of the initiative. It claims that the initiative created a unique learning environment—an educational corpus comprising of six films from 2019 competing for the awards—and describes the methods and conceptual angles used in class discussions. The first part of the article outlines the interpretive framework offered for students to better grasp the general aesthetic and generic patterns at work in the corpus, including the emergence of a medium concept film in Hungarian film culture. The second part introduces another framework that helped students to contextualize the corpus by organizing films into two groups based on festival appearances and international visibility. The final part of the paper focuses on interpretations proposed by students, the ways they used the analytical methods of integration and differentiation while addressing the HUFA-corpus. This includes reconstructing key arguments as to how in-class debates mapped up, compared, and criticised the manifold strategies films employ to raise awareness towards traumatic experience. The pedagogical benefits of the initiative were most apparent in this stage, where students were expected to consider both individual films and an overarching trauma-discourse.

Analysis of the Female Characters in "Blood Goddess" from the Perspective of Lacan's Mirror Theory

Written and directed by Yazhe Yang, the Taiwanese film "Blood Goddess" won the Best Feature Film Award at the 54th Taiwan Film Golden Horse Awards. The film tells the story of the heroine, Tang Zhen, who, after experiencing various subversive blows and self-alienation in the fierce battle of politicians under the dark 1980s, eventually transforms into a new generation of ruthless "Mrs. Tang After experiencing various subversive blows and self-alienation, she finally transforms into a new generation of ruthless "Mrs. Tang" and realizes the real subject pursuit. This paper uses French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan's core theory - mirror theory - to start the analysis, discussing how the protagonist Tang really grows from an "angel" to a "demon" step by step, thus making a deeper understanding of the film.

Quantifying Award Network and Career Development in the Movie Industry

In show business, awards are conferred to persons and films to provide incentives to performers’ future career development through periodic film festivals and events. In this work, we focused on exploring the growth and dynamics of the film award system, the structure of the award network, and the relationships between historical performance, collaborations, and future career success of performers in the movie industry. We collected data from IMDb, which covers more than 3.5K movie events for 520K individuals with their award-winning and career records for over 90 years. By using network analysis and regression models, we find several novel results. At first, we found the exponential proliferation of awards across all genres of films and all professions of individuals and the uneven distribution of the number of awards in careers across time. More than 30% of the performers have won multiple awards. Second, we built an award network to reveal the interlocks between awards based on multiple award-winning phenomena. We found that for prestigious awards, 47% of the linkages were over-representative than the expectations from the null model. Furthermore, the performers’ collaboration network was highly clustered, exhibiting a high propensity of linkages between awarded performers. Lastly, our regression models revealed that multiple factors were related to performers’ early career success and award winning. Specifically, we showed that along with the performers’ historical achievements, their collaborators serve an important role in award winning after being nominated, with the scope and depth of the impact differing in the awards’ prestige. This work has strong implications for the harmonious dynamics of the movie industry and the career development of performers.

More Than a "Chinese Century": The Case of International Film Festival and Awards Macao

This article contributes to debates around cultural event management in the Chinese century by investigating the case of the International Film Festival & Awards Macao (IFFAM). It first problematizes the Chinese century concept by contrasting studies on film-related soft power in China as cultural diplomacy with the Macao Special Administrative Government's use of festivals and events as place marketing strategies. It argues Macao does not fit comfortably into the soft power paradigm normally associated with China and uses the festival to illuminate areas of difference. Within this problematized context, the case study of IFFAM is built on existing studies of eventalization as urban cultural policies. The analysis section demonstrates IFFAM differs from state-led film activities in mainland China. Findings presented and evaluated include official announcements about IFFAM by the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO), where the festival's objective to "improve Macao's international reputation" are contrasted with the paradigms underpinning mainland China's goingout international trade policy. Further findings relate to the festival's programming strategies, and domestic and international reception of IFFAM in the past years, answering the question of whether Macao and IFFAM act as intermediaries, influencing cultural policy and film festival production practices in other regions of China and recentering film festivals' focus from Europe to Asia. It emphasizes the importance of IFFAM's development in Macao because of its unique status and potential as an alternative, intermediary lens for observing the Chinese century.

Interpretation of Conversational Implicature in the Film Green Book From the Perspective of the Cooperative Principle

Green Book, which premiered in September 2018, won various awards during the North American film awards season, culminating in the 2019 Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor. The film follows the travels of African-American pianist Dr. Donald Shirley and his hired Italian chauffeur and bodyguard, Tony Lip, in the 1960s. Combining Grice's conversational implicature theory and cooperative principle theory, this paper analyzes the dialogue between Dr. Donald Shirley and Tony Lip in the film, explores the implication of conversation from the violation of the cooperative principle, so as to deeply understand how conversation depicts character's personality and how conversation conveys humor.

Experimental shorts, film culture, and Third World Cinema in 1950s–1970s Hong Kong: An interview with Law Kar

Law Kar provides a comprehensive overview of his thoughts on the historical development of left-wing and progressive cinema in Hong Kong from the 1940s–1970s. Law Kar introduces the concept of ­“spontaneous” in relation to “third cinema” produced in Hong Kong, which allows space for the critical thinking of the creative personnel working on the films and the audiences watching them. Law’s insights complicate the political horizon of left-wing films and moves beyond simply repeating the line of the studios’ dominating the films within the Cold War context; instead, what emerges is a political spectrum that is much wider than the studio. This not only echoes the idea of spontaneity laid out by Fanon in the decolonization project but challenges understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of progressive films and media in Hong Kong. Law Kar is a veteran film critic in Hong Kong. Since the 1960s he has served as editor for publications such as The Chinese Student Weekly (Zhongguo xuesheng zhoubao), Intellectual Biweekly (Zhishi fenzi shuang zhou kan), and made several experimental films such as Beg for Life (Qi shi). He later worked for the Hong Kong International Film Festival and Hong Kong Film Archive. He recently received the Award for Professional Achievement at the Hong Kong Film Awards.

PROJEK ‘ROAD TO OSCAR’: PEMBENTUKAN NARATIF DAN JATI DIRI BUDAYA SINEMA MALAYSIA KE ‘SINEMA OSCAR’

The Road to Oscar project, an action plan entrusted to FINAS by the Minister of Communications and Multimedia at a press conference on 16 June 2020. The main objective is to ensure that Malaysian Cinema succeeds in the Academy Award or Oscar in the International Feature Film Award category. According to Datuk Saifuddin Abdullah (Minister of Communications and Multimedia), a roadmap or blueprint of patriotism that upholds the Malay culture, in line with the country's creative policy, government policy and broadcasting ethics must be designed. The film Roh (2019) which was inspired by the Japanese film, Onibaba (1964), was inspired into the space and time of the Malay world theme through the myths of the Malay world community, decided by the FINAS Film Selection Committee (comprising professional and experienced local film industry players), representing Cinema Malaysia's to the 93rd Academy Award (April 2021). The selection has gone through a detailed evaluation process based on Oscar film criteria. Even so, Roh did not manage to be shortlisted (12 best). Therefore, through a qualitative method of content analysis, this study will focus on the discussion regards to the characterisation elements of cinematic narrative storytelling framework, that configured by Malaysian cultural identity with the look and feel of Oscar. This study will analyse two comparative samples, Roh (2020) and Parasite (2019, South Korea) - the winner of 92nd Best International Feature Film Award (2019).

White Saviors Get Gold Trophies: Colorblind Racism and Film Award Culture

“White Saviors Get Gold Trophies: Colorblind Racism and Film Award Culture” analyzes the cultural “text” of Green Book’s Best Picture acceptance speech at the 2019 Academy Awards to expose the neoliberal, colorblind mode of racism that infects the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as well as the American film industry at large.

Subversion of the Masculine Gender Roles in the Malayalam Film, “Kumbalangi Nights”

Like most of the regional films in India, Malayalam film industry has undergone radical changes which is ultimately a reflection of the societal changes in Kerala. The 2019 film in the regional language, Malayalam, Kumbalangi Nights, directed by Madhu C Narayan enters the list of such films. The film became a point of discussion in the Malayalam film industry as it won the Kerala State film award in 2020. The film has taken a diverse look at the societal problems of the lower middle-class people in the city of Kochi. The study is an analysis of the way in which the film has subverted the popular notions of masculinity and redefined the patriarchal world views within the family structure.

In Case You Haven't Heard…

“I am a homosexual. I am a psychiatrist.” So began the speech presented by Dr. H. Anonymous (who later revealed himself as Dr. John Fryer) at the 1972 American Psychiatric Association (APA) annual meeting held in Dallas, Texas, the APA stated in a news release. The story of Dr. Fryer, Barbara Gittings, Frank Kameny and others who worked together to push the APA to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is being told in a powerful new documentary, “Cured.” The film will air as the season premiere of Independent Lens on PBS on Oct. 11, which is National Coming Out Day. The documentary, which recently won the American Historical Association's John E. O'Connor Film Award for best historical documentary of 2021, features interviews with many activists and psychiatrists, among them APA CEO and Medical Director Saul Levin, M.D., M.P.A., and APA Past President (1991–92) Lawrence Hartmann, M.D. The national PBS broadcast of “Cured” is scheduled for 10 p.m. ET/9 p.m. CT (check local listings) on Oct. 11. The film will be available to stream for 30 days after the broadcast on PBS.org or the PBS app. For more information about the documentary, visit https://www.cureddocumentary.com.

The Added Value of Oscars and Festival Awards

This article discusses the value of the Academy Awards and awards received by filmmakers at film festivals, as well as other advantages of participating in them. It does so by taking into consideration several aspects of film awards: their effect on the monetary profit made by the winning films, their effect on the construction of the film canon and the ‘cinematic map’ of the world. It also examines factors conducive to receiving awards, such as successful marketing campaigns and tackling certain topics, as well as considers the argument that film awards have lost some of their value in recent years. The article is based on secondary research about Oscars and film festivals, a large part of which is based on journalistic sources, reflecting the Ewa Mazierska fact that much of the data is new and hence has not yet been properly digested by the academic community.

Schreiber András interjúja Koltai Lajossal : Látni az embert – és átsuhanni az angyalt

At 75, Lajos Koltai is considered one of the world’s best cinematographers. He has photographed nearly 90 moving pictures. He operated the camera for works significant to both Hungarian and international film history – such as Adoption, Confidence, the Oscar-winning Mephisto, Mrs Déry Where Are You?, and Time Stands Still. His direction of photography has been recognized at numerous international festivals. For example, in 1999, he won the distinguished European Film Award for best European cinematography on account of the films Sunshine, shot with István Szabó, and The Legend of 1900, jointly created with Giuseppe Tornatore. Then, in 2001, he was nominated for an Oscar for Malena, also directed by Tornatore; yet, for both Tornatore films, he won the most prestigious Italian prize, the Italian Film Academy’s David di Donatello Award. Having received both the Béla Balázs Prize and the Kossuth Prize in addition to the title Artist of the Nation, Lajos Koltai made his directorial debut in 2005 with his adaptation of Imre Kertész’ novel Fateless. Two years later, he adapted Susan Minot’s Evening for the silver screen with great success. Starting in September 2021, he has taught the master program in film direction at the renewed University of Theatre and Film Arts. Moreover, he will soon begin shooting his new film about Ignaz Semmelweis’ years in Vienna.

Madam Fuli: An Echo of the Struggles of Women in Bangladeshi Society

Madam Fuli(1999) is an award winning creation of Shahidul Islam, the director of the film. It is one of the most remarkable films in Dhallywood, the Film Industry of Bangladesh, which won the National Film Award afterwards for its storyline and stunning acting by the protagonist’s (Fuli) cast Shimla. This film gave a jolt to the contemporary social systems of Bangladesh regarding our attitude towards the skin color of women and also towards our concept of beauty. Through the portrayal of various stage of Fuli’s life, the director, Shahidul Islam Khokon, who is the producer and the screen-play writer of this film, takes attempts to show what are the things and incidents a girl or a woman go through in the society in Bangladesh. By putting a tagline as ‘Fight for Right’ the director wants to visualize the struggle of a woman in the society of Bangladesh. But somehow, this film actually encourages the same follies and vices of the social practices that it intends to resist. This article shows how Madam Fuli actually waters into the roots of the same old racist concept of beauty.