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The African American Film Critics Association has announced its honorees for the 16th annual Aafca Awards and the 2025 Aafca Special Achievement Awards. The two distinct ceremonies will honor the best cinematic achievements from the Black community in 2024, with “Nickel Boys” and “The Piano Lesson” leading the pack.

Held on Sunday, February 2 at the Los Angeles Athletic Club, the Special Achievement Awards will honor RaMell Ross’ “Nickel Boys” with the Karen & Stanley Kramer Social Justice Award, while stars Brandon Wilson and Ethan Herisse are set to receive the Gen Next Award. Amber Rasberry, who oversaw the film as a senior creative executive at Amazon MGM, will also be honored with the Horizon Award.

Seventeen days later, the Aafca Awards will keep the love for “Nickel Boys” rolling when Ross receives the Spotlight Award. “The Piano Lesson” director Malcolm Washington will also receive the Emerging Director Award while his star Ray Fischer...

The African American Film Critics Association (Aafca) will honor notable Black filmmakers and performers at two upcoming events in early 2025, recognizing their amazing achievements in film.

“Nickel Boys” is at the top of this year’s awards, receiving three major distinctions. RaMell Ross’ film will get the Karen & Stanley Kramer Social Justice Award, and its young performers, Brandon Wilson and Ethan Herisse, will receive the Gen Next Award. Ross will win the Spotlight Award.

The association will hold two ceremonies: the Special Achievement Awards on February 2 at the Los Angeles Athletic Club and the Aafca Awards on February 19 at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel.

Several more great artists will be recognized in a variety of categories. Malcolm Washington will get the Emerging Director Award for adapting August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson,” while Ray Fisher will receive the Breakout Performance Award. Nicole Avant will get the Beacon Award for producing Tyler Perry...

The African American Film Critics Association (Aafca) announced today its 16th Annual Aafca Awards and 2025 Special Achievement honorees. The Special Achievement Awards takes place on Sunday, Feb. 2, at the Los Angeles Athletic Club, and the Annual Aafca Awards on Wednesday, Feb. 19, at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. The recipients include actors and artisans from 2025 Oscars contenders “Nickel Boys,” “The Piano Lesson,” and “The Six Triple Eight.”

The 2025 Special Achievement Awards honorees include:

Lynn Whitfield, Legacy Award Brandon Wilson and Ethan Herisse, Gen Next Award “Nickel Boys,” Karen & Stanley Kramer Social Justice Award Amber Rasberry, Horizon Award

The 16th Annual Aafca Awards honorees include:

Nicole Avant, Beacon Award Malcolm Washington, Emerging Director Award Ray Fisher, Breakout Performance Award RaMell Ross, Spotlight Award

“Our honorees set a high standard of discipline, talent, and hard work that inspires others to strive for greatness,” said Aafca President and Co-Founder Gil Robertson in a press release.

“Nickel Boys,” director RaMell Ross’ dramatic adaptation of the Colson Whitehead novel about a brutal reform school for teenage boys in Florida, won three of the eight honorary awards announced by the African American Film Critics Association on Wednesday.

In the 2025 Special Achievement Awards, the film was named recipient of the Karen & Stanley Kramer Social Justice Award, while its two young stars, Brandon Wilson and Ethan Herisse, will receive the Gen Next Award. In special honors at the 16th Annual Aafca Awards, director Ross will receive the Spotlight Award.

Two awards went to the August Wilson adaptation “The Piano Lesson,” with director Malcolm Washington receiving the Emerging Director Award and costar Ray Fisher the Breakout Performance Award.

Other winners of the 2025 Special Achievement Awards are Lynn Whitfield, the Legacy Award for her decades-long body of work; and MGM executive Amber Rasberry, the Horizon Award for her work elevating Black stories in film.

The African American Film Critics Association (Aafca) has revealed the honorees for the 16th annual Aafca Awards as well as the honorees for its 2025 Special Achievement Awards.

Nicole Avant, Malcolm Washington, Ray Fisher, RaMell Ross and Brad Pitt’s production company Plan B Entertainment are set to be honored at the Aafca Awards on Feb. 19, 2025, which will be held at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Los Angeles.

Avant, a producer, former U.S. ambassador to the Bahamas and the wife of Netflix co-ceo Ted Sarandos, will receive the Beacon Award for producing Tyler Perry’s upcoming Netflix historical drama series The Six Triple Eight and the documentary The Black Godfather, about her late father Clarence Avant, the legendary music executive.

Washington, a filmmaker who made his feature debut with an adaptation of August Wilson Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Piano Lesson, will receive the Aafca’s Emerging Director Award. The Piano Lesson,...

Photo Credit Courtesy of Orion Pictures Based on the 2020 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys stars Daveed Diggs as the adult Elwood Curtis, who reflects on the time he spent in a cruel reform school as a child. Although the story is fictional, the school is based on a real one that existed in the 1960s. Diggs shared his feeling that the abuse and atrocities depicted in the film, though set in the past, still resonate today. (Click on the media bar below to hear Daveed Diggs.) https://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Davee_-Diggs_Nickel_-Boys_Unique_Storytelling_.mp3

Nickel Boys opens in selected theaters on December 13.

The post Daveed Diggs: ‘Nickel Boys’ Issues Aren’t All In Our Past appeared first on Hollywood Outbreak.

No need to look to the western sky to find Cynthia Erivo — she can now be located in our Oscar experts‘ Best Actress predictions.

Buoyed by great reviews and record box office numbers, the “Wicked” star has soared into the top five nomination rankings of our influential media pundits. As of this writing, the experts collectively predict that the Best Actress Oscar lineup will be Mikey Madison (“Anora”) at 37/10 odds, Karla Sofía Gascón (“Emilia Pérez”) at 9/2 odds, Angelina Jolie (“Maria”) at 9/2 odds, Marianne Jean-Baptiste (“Hard Truths”) at 8/1 odds, and Erivo at 8/1 odds.

Universal Pictures’ “Wicked,” Jon M. Chu‘s long-awaited adaptation of the popular Broadway stage musical, finally opened in theaters on Friday, Nov. 22. Erivo plays Elphaba Thropp, aka the Wicked Witch of the West, and Ariana Grande takes on the role of her frenemy Galinda Upland, aka Glinda the Good Witch. Other notable cast members include Jonathan Bailey as Fiyero Tigelaar,...

Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7:00 p.m. Et/ 4:00 p.m. Pt. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

Best Supporting Actress may be the acting category most thrown out of whack by the holiday releases. Netflix seems so set to dominate the category this season, with Zoe Saldaña and Selena Gomez for “Emilia Pérez,” a Best Picture frontrunner; Danielle Deadwyler for “The Piano Lesson,” two years after the infamous “Till” snub; and any one of the stars of “His Three Daughters,” but especially Natasha Lyonne.

And, sure, there have been plenty more actresses waiting in the wings, whether they be David Lynch muses Isabella Rossellini...

Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7:00 p.m. Et/ 4:00 p.m. Pt. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

The past couple of years, the Best Actor Oscar race has been rigid to the point of there typically only being room for one surprise nominee to gain momentum in the back half of awards season. Though few nominations have been released, 2024 is shaping up to be no different, with prognosticators really having to stretch to create a list longer than 10 names who have a shot at a nod, if that.

What most people have been waiting to see is how voters will respond to Timothée Chalamet...

We here at Film Independent are excited about the new film Nickel Boys, and not just because it’s one of the most buzzed about movies of the fall. We have a special connection to the filmmaking team. Cinematographer Jomo Fray is a 2017 Project Involve Fellow.

He worked on the short film Emergency in his year as a cinematography fellow with producing fellow Joenique C. Rose. Joenique now works with us here at Film Independent, and we brought them together to talk about Nickel Boys and Jomo’s journey from Project Involve to where he is today.

Because it’s Thanksgiving week, we thought we’d give you a double serving and share with you this in-depth interview in two parts. Part one is below and look for part two later this week.

Okay, so first of all, I love Nickel Boys. I can’t wait to see it again in theaters.

“Wicked” led all films in nominations for the 2024 Astra Film Awards, the Hollywood Creative Coalition announced on Monday. The hit musical received a record 19 nominations, including Best Picture, Best Comedy or Musical, three acting noms and a sweep of all the below-the-line categories in which it was eligible.

The big-budget sequel “Dune: Part Two” was second with 15 nominations, while Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical “Emilia Perez” received 11, the body horror film “The Substance” received 10 and Luca Guadagnino’s “Challengers” received nine.

Films that were not nominated in the top category include “Gladiator II,” “Nickel Boys,” “Blitz,” “September 5” and “A Complete Unknown.”

Overall, the nominations tended toward high-profile and commercial movies, with more challenging performances by Daniel Craig, Sebastian Stan, Nicole Kidman, Tilda Swinton and Marianne Jean-Baptiste overlooked in favor of, for instance, acting nominations for Naomi Scott for “Smile 2” and three separate stars of “Wicked”: Cynthia Erivo,...

If the 2025 Oscars nominations were announced today, what would Gold Derby predict as the nominees and winners? Since our predictions center opened on July 1, 2024, more than 6,000 people have made their forecasts in 18 top categories. So who’s out front to claim these golden trophies, according to the Gold Derby Oscar predictions 2025?

Below, see a snapshot in time of our racetrack odds for the 97th Academy Awards, updated on Nov. 25, 2024. See how the odds and rankings have changed over time by examining our previous Oscar snapshots on July 3, July 9, July 16, July 23, July 29, Aug. 6, Aug. 19, Aug. 28, Sept. 11, Sept. 19, Sept. 23, Sept. 30, Oct. 7, Oct. 14, Oct. 22, Oct. 28, Nov. 4, Nov. 11, and Nov. 18.

Now expected to receive a nomination since the last update: Yura Borisov (“Anora”) in Best Supporting Actor. The Neon film centers around the titular character, a sex worker (Mikey Madison) who embarks on a whirlwind romance with a client, the young son of a Russian oligarch.

Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2 and air live on ABC at 7:00 p.m. Et/ 4:00 p.m. Pt. We update our picks through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

It has already been said plenty of times, even since Cannes, but this is a really weird year for Best Picture. Academy rules have changed to make it so there will be 10 nominees no matter what, but there are only five to seven films that feel like shoo-ins for an Oscar nomination in the category.

With all the uncertainty around what films will make it in, there’s room for one or two newcomers to claim a spot. With critics having seen the last crop of major live-action awards contenders,...

Louisiana lawmakers saved the state’s tax credit as part of a sweeping set of fiscal reform bills that are headed the governor’s desk coming out of a special legislative session.

The increasingly popular credit had been abolished by the House along with a wide range of other incentives to make up lost revenue from Gov. Jeff Landry’s push to slash corporate tax and personal income tax in the state. But the film and television incentive was reinstated by a Senate committee earlier this week. The annual cap was lowered to $125 million from $150 million but local film industry players were still pretty thrilled that it emerged relatively intact.

The amount set aside for residual claims lowered to $125 million, down from $180 million. The bills passed the full Senate and worked through the House today without further cuts.

The program, which starts at 25% but can rise as high as 40% in...

IndieWire, the definitive outlet for creative independence in film and TV, announced on Thursday, November 21 new additions to the latest edition of its biannual IndieWire Honors event. Curated and selected by IndieWire’s editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the filmmakers, artisans, and performers responsible for some of the most stellar offerings of this year’s film awards season.

Today’s newly announced honorees include Spotlight Award winner “Emilia Pérez” star Selena Gomez, and Emily Bear and Abigail Barlow, Breakthrough Award winners as songwriters for “Moana 2.” They join previously announced honorees Denis Villeneuve, Pamela Anderson, Steve McQueen, Luca Guadagnino, Justin Kuritzkes, Jennifer Lopez, Amy Pascal, Angela Patton, Natalie Rae, RaMell Ross, Chris Sanders, and Adam Stockhausen.

Additionally, IndieWire has announced that the December event will be hosted by “Blink Twice” star Simon Rex, returning to the hosting role that first drew him acclaim. Previous IndieWire Honors emcees include Emmy winner Alex Edelman,...

The past is ever present in our lives, so it’s unsurprising that many movies lean on that juxtaposition in the stories they tell. In 2024, the past casts an especially big shadow across films like “The Brutalist,” “Gladiator II,” “The Piano Lesson,” “Conclave,” “A Real Pain” “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” “The Return” and even the comedy “My Old Ass.”

“Memory and trauma are inextricable from the present moment,” says “Nickel Boys” director RaMell Ross.

The Holocaust looms over both “A Real Pain” and “The Brutalist,” although the former examines how the trauma still lingers existentially several generations later, while in “The Brutalist” it’s as immediate as the nose on Laszlo Toth’s face: Toth (Adrien Brody) wrecked it jumping from a train to survive, leading to a heroin addiction to treat the pain.

“We all carry our history in our body,” says Mona Fastvold, who co-wrote the movie with director Brady Corbet.

On Wednesday, AARP The Magazine announced its 2025 Movies for Grownups Awards nominations. Papal thriller “Conclave” leads with six nominations, including Best Picture/Best Movie for Grownups, Best Director for Edward Berger, and Best Actor for Ralph Fiennes. Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” is in second place, with five nominations. TV nominees with multiple nominations include “Hacks,” “The Morning Show,” “Shōgun,” and “Slow Horses.”

The American Association of Retired People’s Movies for Grownups program champions movies and TV “for grownups, by grownups,” meaning 50-plus.

“A Complete Unknown,” “Conclave,” “Emilia Perez,” “Gladiator II,” and “September 5” are the Best Picture/Best Movie for Grownups nominees.

In the Best Actress category, nominees are Pamela Anderson (“The Last Showgirl”), Marianne Jean-Baptiste (“Hard Truths”), Nicole Kidman (“Babygirl”), Demi Moore (“The Substance”), and June Squibb (“Thelma”). The Best Actor nominees are Adrien Brody (“The Brutalist”), Daniel Craig (“Queer”), Colman Domingo (“Sing Sing”), Ralph Fiennes (“Conclave...

How do the 2025 Oscars Best Picture contenders stack up on Rotten Tomatoes? And does the film with the highest freshness rating have a better shot at winning the big prize?

While critics’ scores don’t determine the Best Picture lineup (there are thousands of highly-rated movies each year), once the lineup is selected by AMPAS, there are at least a few tea leaves worth noting. For instance, the only film to win Best Picture in the last 10 years with a freshness rating lower than 90% is “Green Book,” which has a Tomatometer score of just 77%.

Last year’s winner, “Oppenheimer,” holds a formidable 93%, but it didn’t rank first among it’s competitors. That distinction went to “The Holdovers,” which has a rating of 97%. So, a movie doesn’t have to have the highest score, but it certainly helps its chances. And falling below 90% would put any movie at an extreme disadvantage,...

White Bird: A Wonder Story (2024) has finally arrived in theaters after a two-year wait for the adaptation of the graphic novle by R.J. Palacio. This year has seen several big book adaptations dominate the box office from Dune: Part Two to It Ends With Us.

Several other well known books have transformed for the big screen this year, including comics like The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, childhood stories like Harold and the Purple Crayon and more.

Read on for a list of this year’s book to movie adaptations:

Wicked Part One – Nov 22 – Theaters

Jon Chu’s rendition of the Wizard of Oz prequel story is based on the 1995 novel by Gregory Maguire. The film will star Cynthia Erivo, Ariana Grande, Jonathan Bailey , Jeff Goldblum and more. Wicked Part One arrives in theaters Nov. 22.

Out of My Mind – Nov 22 -Disney+

Phoebe-Rae Taylor in ‘Out of My Mind’

Based on the book by Sharon M. Draper,...

“Nickel Boys” is unlike any film you’ve ever seen. The RaMell Ross drama is shot in first-person point of view, but the writer-director and cinematographer Jomo Fray had another of way of describing it.

“Pretty early on, we started using the term ‘sentient perspective’ instead of saying ‘Pov’ almost as a way to ground us in,” Fray tells Gold Derby during our Meet the Experts: Film Cinematography panel. “What I think RaMell was after was trying to think of an image that always felt like it was connected to a human body. It always felt like it was tied in in a very present tense way — a real person navigating an often hostile environment. It was one of those situations where even on the onset, it was like, ‘Ok, well, if we do want to do this sentient perspective, this first-person perspective, how do we find more traditional film grammar?...

If the 2025 Oscars nominations were announced today, what would Gold Derby predict as the nominees and winners? Since our predictions center opened on July 1, 2024, more than 5,700 people have made their forecasts in 18 top categories. So who’s out front to claim these golden trophies, according to the Gold Derby Oscar predictions 2025?

Below, see a snapshot in time of our racetrack odds for the 97th Academy Awards, updated on Nov. 18, 2024. See how the odds and rankings have changed over time by examining our previous Oscar snapshots on July 3, July 9, July 16, July 23, July 29, Aug. 6, Aug. 19, Aug. 28, Sept. 11, Sept. 19, Sept. 23, Sept. 30, Oct. 7, Oct. 14, Oct. 22, Oct. 28, Nov. 4, and Nov. 11.

Now expected to receive a nomination since the last update: Universal Pictures’ “Wicked” in Best Visual Effects. The movie adaptation of the popular Broadway musical is also predicted to receive nominations in Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress (Ariana Grande), Best Costume Design, Best Makeup & Hairstyling,...

Beim 35. Stockholm Film Festival wurden zwei Filmschaffende aus Österreich mit Preisen bedacht: Bernhard Wenger gewann mit „Pfau – Bin ich echt?“ den Preis für den besten Debütfilm, Martin Gschlacht wurde für seine Bildgestaltung in „Des Teufels Bad“ honoriert.

Martin Glschacht und Bernhard Wenger

Der österreichische Filmemacher Bernhard Wenger hat mit seinem Spiefilmdebüt „Pfau – Bin ich echt?“ beim 35. Stockholm Film Festival das Aluminium Horse als bester Debütfilm gewonnen. Die Jury begründete ihre Entscheidung mit den Worten: „Mit einem originellen Konzept, einem intelligenten Drehbuch sowie einer umwerfenden Leistung der Hauptfigur entführt uns dieses Debüt mit Zuversicht in eine absurde und freche Satire darüber, wie man sein wahres Selbst in einer kapitalistischen Konsumgesellschaft findet. Durch viele humorvolle Situationen baut sich der Film langsam zu einem urkomischen Crescendo auf, wobei er immer einen liebevollen und warmherzigen Blick für die Figuren behält.“ „Pfau – Bin ich echt?“ feierte in Venedig seine Weltpremiere (Settimana Internazionale della Critica), wo...

Gold Derby has been predicting the Oscars (and other Hollywood races) for more than two decades now. But how do our current Academy Awards predictions compare to those made by a new player in the game — artificial intelligence?

On Nov. 16, we asked Gemini, Google’s new AI, to predict the nominations in six categories for the 2025 Oscars: picture, director, lead actor, lead actress, supporting actor, and supporting actress. You can see those results below. For the uninitiated, Gemini is a chatbot “that uses machine learning and natural language processing to provide human-like responses to text, image, and audio prompts.”

Comparatively, Gold Derby’s Oscar predictions are derived from the combined forecasts of four unique groups: experts we’ve polled from major media outlets, editors who cover awards year-round for this website, top 24 users who had the best accuracy scores last year, and the mass of users who make up our biggest predictions bloc.

Shooting Nickel Boys entirely from the characters’ first-person point of view — literally through their eyes — was a novel way to “center the experience” of the film’s subjects, writer-director RaMell Ross said at Saturday’s Deadline Contenders Film: Los Angeles event. It was also a daunting technical and conceptual challenge.

“It was all about unlearning everything that we thought we knew about traditional cinema and trying to reach for the oddest tools, to try to get something that felt really organic and inside the body,” director of photography Jomo Fray said in a panel discussion with Ross, co-star Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and producer Jeremy Kleiner.

Related: 2024-25 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Oscars, Grammys, Tonys, Guilds & More

Adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2019 novel, The Nickel Boys, the Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios film follows two Black teen-aged boys imprisoned in a harsh, Jim Crow-era Florida reform school, The Nickel Academy.

Contenders Film: Los Angeles, Deadline’s signature and original Contenders event, kicks off its latest edition this morning at 8:30 a.m. Pt at the DGA Theater in Hollywood, giving awards voters the opportunity to experience up close and personal the story of 21 of the awards season’s most acclaimed movies, and to hear directly from the talent responsible.

If you’re not attending in person, click here to launch the livestream.

The year 2024 has been a challenging one for the film community as the actors and writers strikes of last year threw the industry off balance and delayed many films, stopping some right in the middle of production and making it especially hard to stick to planned release dates. What is remarkable is the number of films that did manage to meet release dates and maintain the highest quality that has brought them to our event today.

What a lineup we have,...

Deadline’s 2024 Contenders Film: Los Angeles, an annual daylong awards-season kickoff event, hosted stars and talent of films competing for the top honors during the upcoming awards season.

The event featured 21 movies from various film studios, with actors, directors and more attending panels hosted at the Director’s Guild of America in Los Angeles Saturday, November 16.

Related: Deadline Studio At Contenders Film 2024 – Pamela Anderson, Kevin Costner, Tilda Swinton, Mikey Madison, Saoirse Ronan, Lupita Nyong’o & More

Morning panelists included actress Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, cinematographer Jomo Fray and writer and director RaMell Ross for Amazon MGM Studios’ and Orion Pictures’ Nickel Boys, star maisy Stella and director Megan Park for My Old Ass, producer Amy Pascal, scribe Justin Kuritzkes and director and producer Luca Guadagnino for Challengers.

Kevin Costner, composer John Debney and costume designer Lisa Lovaas spoke about Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, and Saorise Ronan spoke for both Apple TV’s Blitz and The Outrun.

Who knew pop star Ariana Grande was an adept musical comedienne? That surprise discovery should land her an Oscar nomination for Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the global hit musical “Wicked”, which will prove a box-office juggernaut. On that much “Screen Talk” co-hosts Ryan Lattanzio and Anne Thompson agree; but he hates the cheesy visuals and loves Jonathan Bailey’s charismatic supporting turn as the romantic interest of both witches-in-training, while Anne admires the music, well-produced by Marc Platt and delivered with gusto by Cynthia Erivo and Grande.

“Wicked” follows Steven Spielberg’s recent “West Side Story,” which earned seven nominations in 2022 and a win for another supporting discovery, Ariana DeBose. And Rob Marshall’s film version of Bob Fosse’s “Chicago” (2002) was also one of 10 musical Best Picture winners. But we agree they were executed with more visual and technical mastery.

‘Juror #2’Courtesy of Warner Bros.

Both co-hosts...

While many “Deadpool & Wolverine” quips have become fan favorites, like Gambit’s “I’m boutta’ make a name for myself here,” star and screenwriter Ryan Reynolds has a more sentimental take on which lines were his favorite to write.

“The thing I’m probably most proud of was the Wolverine speech in the van where he just tears Deadpool a new one,” said Reynolds. “To me, it’s one of the most beautiful scenes in the movie because you see what a raw, visceral, powerhouse of an actor Hugh Jackman is. But you also see the roles reversed. You see a character who is never verbose, who is a Clint Eastwood archetype, suddenly going, ‘Oh yeah, man? Well, I can talk too.'”

Reynolds was one of the 25 people honored at Hamilton’s 13th annual Behind the Camera Awards, presented by Variety, which celebrates and recognizes the work of below-the-line filmmakers.

The Academy Awards are still months away but the best picture landscape is already taking shape. Some question marks remain — for example, both “Nosferatu” and the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” have yet to be widely seen. And the staying power of smaller indies like “A Real Pain” and “Nickel Boys” has yet to be tested. Critical attention could boost films like “I’m Still Here” and “Hard Truths.” And it’s been a great year for animation with films like “Inside Out 2” and “The Wild Robot” — can they break the bias into the lead race?

While we’ll have to wait a bit longer for answers, here’s a look at some of the films that are generating the most discussion to take home the top prize in March.

Anora

Neon

Anchored by Mikey Madison’s force-of-nature performance in the title role, Sean Baker’s tale of a...

Three top film screenwriters will reveal secrets behind their projects when they join Gold Derby’s special “Meet the Experts” Q&a event with movie contenders. They will participate in two video discussions to premiere on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 6:00 p.m. Pt; 9:00 p.m. Et. We’ll have a one-on-one with our senior editor Daniel Montgomery and a roundtable chat with all of the group together.

RSVP today to our entire ongoing contenders panel series by clicking here to book your free reservation. We’ll send you a reminder a few minutes before the start of the show.

Challengers

Synopsis: Tashi, a former tennis prodigy turned coach, transformed her husband into a champion. But to overcome a recent losing streak and redeem himself, he’ll need to face off against his former best friend and Tashi’s ex-boyfriend.

Bio: Justin Kuritzkes’ career has included “Ticklish” and “Queer.”

His Three Daughters

Synopsis: This tense,...

IndieWire, the definitive outlet for creative independence in film and TV, announced on Thursday, November 14 the latest edition of its biannual IndieWire Honors event. Curated and selected by IndieWire’s editorial team, IndieWire Honors is a celebration of the filmmakers, artisans, and performers responsible for some of the most stellar offerings of this year’s film awards season. In June, IndieWire Honors celebrated its first-ever TV-only edition of the event.

The fourth edition of the event will be celebrated at an intimate cocktail reception taking place on Thursday, December 5 in Los Angeles. Exclusive content, including honoree profiles, will be featured on IndieWire.com beginning November 29 and continue until the awards night, followed by video interviews from the event.

Additional honorees and the event’s host will be announced in the coming days.

“This will be another unforgettable IndieWire Honors, a night unlike any other,” said Dana Harris-Bridson, IndieWire’s Senior VP and Editor-in-Chief.

Louisiana’s increasingly popular state tax credit for film and television production might be at risk as legislators at a special session are considering the repeal of a wide range of incentives.

The credit – with a base of 25% that can run as high as 40% — is capped at $150 million annually (with up to $30 million more for credits unclaimed the previous year).

It’s been attracting productions and Louisiana regularly comes up among the list of states filmmakers look at. Over the past decade, it has hosted over 700 motion pictures, TV series and documentaries from Interview with the Vampire and National Treasure to Nickel Boys, Leverage: Redemption, The Iron Claw and Where the Crawdads Sing.

The fight, as always, centers around whether the film tax incentive brings in more than it costs the state, which has reported a budget shortfall.

Proponents say it accounts for $360 million in spending. Adversaries cite a report...

If the 2025 Oscars nominations were announced today, what would Gold Derby predict as the nominees and winners? Since our predictions center opened on July 1, 2024, more than 5,500 people have made their forecasts in 18 top categories. So who’s out front to claim these golden trophies, according to the Gold Derby Oscar predictions 2025?

Below, see a snapshot in time of our racetrack odds for the 97th Academy Awards, updated on November 11, 2024. See how the odds and rankings have changed over time by examining our previous Oscar snapshots on July 3, July 9, July 16, July 23, July 29, August 6, August 19, August 28, September 11, September 19, September 23, September 30, October 7, October 14, October 22, October 28, and November 4.

Now expected to receive a nomination since the last update: “Wicked” in Best Picture, Marianne Jean-Baptiste (“Hard Truths”) in Best Actress, and both “September 5” and “The Substance” in Best Original Screenplay.

See Make your Oscar predictions right now — it’s fun and easy!

Gold Derby’s...

Tyler Perry, Regina King, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor and “The Best Man’s” Malcolm D. Lee will be honored at the Critics Choice Association’s seventh annual Celebration of Black Cinema and Television.

Actor and comedian Jay Pharoah, best known for “Saturday Night Live” and his recent comedy special “Jared,” will host the gala on Dec. 9 at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles. The ceremony will air on Starz in January 2025. It will then be televised on Ktla and shown nationwide on select Nexstar stations through the month of February in honor of Black History Month.

Perry will be presented with the Icon Award, celebrating his body of work. In addition to his upcoming Netflix film “The Six Triple Eight”, Perry has helmed 24 feature films, 20 stage plays, 17 television shows and penned two New York Times bestselling books, in addition to establishing the 330-acre Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta.

Lee will be...

Regina King, Steve McQueen and Cynthia Erivo are among the honorees for the 7th annual Celebration of Black Cinema & Television, which will be hosted by Jay Pharoah and take place at Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles on Dec. 9, 2024. The Critics Choice Association released the full slate of recipients on Thursday.

As previously announced, Tyler Perry will receive the Icon Award for this career achievements. Joining him are King, who recently starred in Netflix’s Shirley Chisholm biopic “Shirley”; McQueen, director of the Apple TV + WWII drama “Blitz”; Erivo, soon to appear in Universal’s “Wicked”; and many others known for their excellent work.

Shawn Edwards, executive producer and writer for the Celebration of Black Cinema & Television, said in a statement, “We are proud to recognize this year’s outstanding group of honorees. 2024 was an exceptional year. There were so many great stories about the Black experience, and this event...

This fall, dozens of great movies were showcased at the top film festivals across the globe, and many of those that screened at Venice, Telluride, Toronto, New York, and AFI Fest will shape the awards season over the next three months. The very best reviewed of these is “No Other Land,” a film that would appear destined for an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary. If only it could find a distributor.

What “No Other Land” documents, with a clear-eyed bravery of filmmakers willing to risk their lives and freedom to capture it, is how rural Palestinian communities, that have existed for generations in the West Bank, are unable to live the simplest existence. We watch their homes get knocked down by the Israeli military, and how as they desperately try to salvage their possessions they are faced with the impossible decision to flee the only life they’ve ever known,...

Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2, and air live on ABC at 7 p.m. Et/ 4 p.m. Pt. We update our picks throughout awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

As we enter the fall/holiday season, “Wicked” (Universal) and “Gladiator II” (Paramount) are gathering early buzz for the Best Sound Oscar. Other standouts include “Emilia Pérez” (Netflix), “Blitz” (Apple TV+), “Maria” (Netflix), and “Nickel Boys” (Amazon MGM Studios). Still to come are the highly anticipated “Nosferatu” (Focus Features) and “A Complete Unknown” (Searchlight Pictures). Another major contender, course, is “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.).

In “Wicked,” Jon M. Chu’s adaptation of the Broadway musical by Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman, we get the unlikely friendship between...

Awards season is in full swing, and we here at Film Independent have been busy! Our Film Independent Presents calendar is full of exciting films with some of the brightest talent in independent film. Of course, as a Member, you can see these screenings for free, and watch the Q&As in person. But as a faithful blog reader, you get the second best thing: YouTube videos! On our YouTube channel (don’t forget to like and subscribe), we share all the latest and greatest Q&As from our programing. This month, we have new films from Peter Sarsgaard, Lily Gladstone, Elisabeth Olsen, Sebastian Stan and more!

Here are just a few of the most recent Q&As from our Film Independent Presents screenings:

Watch as Elizabeth Olsen, Jovan Adepo and director Azelel Jacobs talk about creating an intimate set to explore family dynamics in the new Netflix film His Three Daughters.

Nominations voting is from January 8-12, 2025, with official Oscar nominations announced January 17, 2025. Final voting is February 11-18, 2025. And finally, the 97th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 2, and air live on ABC at 7 p.m. Et/ 4 p.m. Pt. We update our picks throughout awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2025 Oscar predictions.

The State of the Race

Fall has arrived, and “Conclave” (Focus Features), “Emilia Pérez” (Netflix), “The Brutalist” (A24), “Gladiator II” (Paramount), and “Wicked” (Universal) have all emerged as Best Editing Oscar contenders. However, “Blitz” (Apple TV+), “Nickel Boys” (Amazon MGM Studios), “Queer” (A24), and “The First Inside” (Amazon MGM Studios) look promising, and “September 5” (Paramount) is shaping up to be the dark horse. Still to be seen are “Nosferatu” (Focus Features) and “A Complete Unknown” (Searchlight Pictures), but don’t forget about “Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.).

“Conclave,” Edward Berger’s follow-up to...

Exclusive: Danielle Deadwyler achieved “artistic love” working with director Malcom Washington and his sibling John David Washington on the screen adaptation of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play The Piano Lesson.

“I’m with these beautiful men,” she says. ”They’re like brothers to me.”

Deadwyler, acclaimed for her portrait of heartbreak in the 2022 movie Till, tells me that her own “beautiful family” upbringing informed how she sought work and “gives me great responsibility to connect to people who want to embolden me in my work and I them.”

She is steadfast in finding such people. “I’ve had some really great experiences, this being one of them,” she says of The Piano Lesson, which Netflix will release into select cinemas Friday in the U.S. and UK. The streamer will launch the film on its service November 22.

Related: Contenders London Studio: Selena Gomez, Lupita Nyong’o, Zoe Saldaña & More

However,...

If the 2025 Oscars nominations were announced today, what would Gold Derby predict as the nominees and winners? Since our predictions center opened on July 1, 2024, more than 5,300 people have made their forecasts in 18 top categories. So who’s out front to claim these golden trophies, according to the Gold Derby Oscar predictions 2025?

Below, see a snapshot in time of our racetrack odds for the 97th Academy Awards, updated on November 4, 2024. See how the odds and rankings have changed over time by examining our previous Oscar snapshots on July 3, July 9, July 16, July 23, July 29, August 6, August 19, August 28, September 11, September 19, September 23, September 30, October 7, October 14, October 22, and October 28.

Now expected to receive a nomination since the last update: “Wicked” in Best Sound. It’s no doubt being buoyed by the positive reactions from those who saw early screenings of Universal’s film adaptation of the classic Broadway musical.

See Make your Oscar predictions right now — it’s fun and easy!

Nickel Boys brings the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about two friends surviving a Florida reform school together to the screen. Director RaMell Ross hired Scott Alario and Alex Somers to create the music, and the composers found inspiration on location in New Orleans that Ross encouraged them to explore.

“Some of [the sounds] were a broken fan that was in a bathroom,” Alario said during a conversation and performance at Deadline’s Sound & Screen Film music showcase event on Friday. “Alex heard it and was like, ‘You have to go in there and record that fan. It sounds so interesting.’ I said, ‘Yes, You’re right, I will do that’ and we did it. We weren’t sure it would make it into the film but It’s in there.”

Alario met Ross when they were students at Rhode Island School of Design. Alario and Somers have been collaborators for 20 years and composed...

‘Anora’, del director Sean Baker, encabeza las nominaciones. © Gotham| Universal Pictures | A24

Ya se conocen los nominados a los Gotham, unos galardones que premian lo mejor del cine independiente estadounidense y que dan el pistoletazo de salida oficial (como cada año) a la temporada de premios.

Este año, Anora, de Sean Baker – que, por cierto, acaba de estrenarse en cines españoles –, es la película con más nominaciones, con un total de cuatro. Muy de cerca le siguen Nickel Boys, de RaMell Ross, y I Saw the TV Glow, de Jane Schoenbrun, ambas con tres nominaciones cada una.

La 34 edición de los Premios Gotham se celebrará el 2 de diciembre. A continuación, os dejamos la lista completa de nominados:

Mejor PELÍCULA

Anora

Babygirl

Challengers

A Different Man

Nickel Boys

Mejor PELÍCULA Internacional

All We Imagine As Light

Green Border

Hard Truths

Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell

Vermiglio

Mejor INTERPRETACIÓN Principal

Pamela Anderson,...

The latest edition of Deadline’s Sound & Screen Film, the event where we shine a spotlight on some of the most intriguing and captivating scores heading into this year’s awards season, is underway Friday night at UCLA’s Royce Hall. We love this event at Deadline because we know how magical it is to see a 60-piece orchestra perform the music behind some of the year’s most exciting movies.

This year’s event, live and in-person only, promises a host of lauded musicians working in the film world. Two-time Oscar-winner Hans Zimmer will touch down to discuss the music he wrote for Steve McQueen’s World War II epic Blitz from Apple Original Films. We’re also welcoming Toto Miranda, Yvonne Lambert and Josh Lambert from experimental band The Octopus Project, who will talk us through the score and song “Creatures of Nature” from Bleecker Street’s Sasquatch Sunset.

Welcome to Oscar Experts Typing, a weekly column in which Gold Derby editors and experts Joyce Eng and Christopher Rosen discuss the Oscar race — via Slack, of course. This week, we revisit Best Picture, which is still without a clear-cut frontrunner.

Christopher Rosen: Hello, Joyce! We’ve circled our weekly column back around to the Best Picture race, and after five weeks, this field remains very much in flux — so much so that I don’t even know what film could stake claim to being this year’s “frontrunner.” Ok, that’s not totally true. In terms of the odds, “Anora” remains the pick du jour. But even the film’s biggest fan, aka me, would probably bet against “Anora” ultimately winning Best Picture next year. “Emilia Pérez,” my pick for Best Picture right now, is in second place in the odds — but that doesn’t feel right either. I...

Is “Conclave” a Best Picture sleeper? Will “Emilia Pérez” endure backlash? Gold Derby editors and experts Christopher Rosen and Joyce Eng are here to answer your burning questions of the week.

“Conclave” has been a modest hit since opening in theaters last weekend. The gossipy papal drama has been sitting in third place in the Best Picture Oscar odds, but could it build enough consensus to actually win on a preferential ballot? Its strength could also pull in Isabella Rossellini, its sole supporting actress hopeful who remains in sixth place but continues to produce audience applause with her big scene in the film. Is her lack of screen time muddling people’s predictions?

See Experts slugfest mailbag: Ridley Scott, predicting the big Oscar snubs, and Kelly Clarkson as host?

Meanwhile, “Emilia Pérez” opens in limited theaters this weekend before arriving on Netflix on Nov. 13. While the cartel musical has its lots of fans,...

Angelina Jolie may have missed out on a competitive Gotham Award nomination this year for her acclaimed performance in “Maria,” but the Oscar-winning actress will still participate in the upcoming ceremony.

On Thursday, the Gotham Film & Media Institute announced Jolie will receive the Performer Tribute for her performance as Maria Callas in Pablo Larrain’s upcoming film “Maria.” The actress will receive the honor at the 34th edition of The Gothams, taking place on Monday, December 2 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City. According to a press release, “The tribute will honor Jolie’s rendition of the legendary opera singer Maria Callas.”

“Like the legendary figure she portrays, Angelina Jolie transcends mere performance to craft something extraordinary. Her interpretation captures both Maria Callas’s complexity as an artist and the cultural resonance that defines an icon,” said Jeffrey Sharp, Executive Director of The Gotham. “We are thrilled to...

A year after premiering at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, Steven Soderbergh’s haunted house experiment “Presence” will finally hit theaters — on January 24, 2025. Neon scooped the movie out of the Park City lineup at the top of this year, now adding “Presence” to its growing roster of horror movies (and isn’t that the growing roster of any Hollywood company right now?) after “Longlegs” and “Immaculate” did strong business this year. In a most unusual twist on the haunted house movie, this film about a suburban family who discovers they are not alone in their new home is shot entirely from the perspective of the ghost. Watch the full trailer for “Presence” below.

Lucy Liu and Chris Sullivan play the heads of a family whose marriage is already fracturing when they move into a handsome, century-old home in a good school district (with Julia Fox briefly making a cameo as their...

What, if anything, do the Gotham Awards nominations mean for the Oscar race? Is “A Real Pain” being underestimated? Gold Derby editors and experts Christopher Rosen and Joyce Eng are here to discuss the first set of nominations this season, Jesse Eisenberg‘s latest film, and more.

“Anora” topped the Gotham Awards nominations with four bids, followed by three apiece for “I Saw the TV Glow” and “Nickel Boys” and nine other films with two. But as usual, there were some quirks with the list, due to the Gotham Awards’ tiny nominating committees of five people. None of the five Best Feature nominees are nominated for Best Screenplay, so how much can you really extrapolate? Last year, neither acting winner, Lily Gladstone for “The Unknown Country” and Charles Melton for “May December,” received Oscar nominations, though the former was up for “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

See Experts slugfest: ‘Gladiator II’ reactions,...

There’s a quiet strength to “Exhibiting Forgiveness” in what is left unsaid. It would have been easy to broadly categorize writer/director Titus Kaphar’s directorial debut with several other “festival darlings” in which a promising young storyteller tries to examine their own grief, guilt, or trauma through the means of a “slice of life” story. While many of these indie films are quite charming in their personability, they generally lack the formal excellence that is needed to be seen as truly major works. Kaphar quickly proves himself to be an outlier with “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” which is in no small part due to the fact that the film is about the importance of utilizing visual language.

At the center of “Exhibiting Forgiveness” is a career-best performance from Andre Holland as Tarrell, an acclaimed painter fresh off the success of a recent showcase. Tarrell is undeniably dedicated to his craft,...