Welcome to FilmLinc Digest, our new series of regular round-ups from the film and festival world. We know you love cinema, and keeping up with news about it just got a little easier!
Amour to be awarded FIPRESCI Grand Prix at San Sebastian
It seems that Amour isn't done raking in the accolades since garnering the Palme d'Or at Cannes last May. It has been announced that the International Federation of Film Critics, also known as FIPRESCI, will be giving Michael Haneke's film its Grand Prix award for Best Film of the Year. The award is decided upon by the votes of 225 critics from around the world and is given to an outstanding feature-length film that has premiered internationally within the past year. It will be presented during the opening gala of the San Sebastian Film Festival on September 21, where Amour will be opening the Zabalgeti Pearls section. Because Haneke is unable to attend, actor RamĂłn Agirre will accept the award. This is the second time that Haneke has been given the award, haveing first received it for his 2009 film The White Ribbon.
D.A. Pennebaker, Jeffrey Katzenberg to receive Honorary Academy Awards
This year's recipients of the Honorary Academy Awards by the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences have been anounced, and they include stuntman Hal Needham, American Film Institute founder George Stevens Jr., documentarian D.A. Pennebaker, and Dreamworks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg. Before going on to direct films such as Bob Dylan: Don't Look Back and The War Room, Pennebaker worked on politic doc Primary, which was shown as a suprisie screening at the first New York Film Festival in 1963. The Honorary Academy Awards will be given out at the 4th Annual Governor's Awards Dinner on December 1.
Before Midnight completes shooting
For the past few months, director Richard Linklater and stars Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke have been teasing the possibility of another installment of the Before Sunrise/set series, but it turns out they were much further ahead on the film than they let on. Indiewire reports that the movie has already wrapped shooting and that the film has landed the official title of Before Midnight. While no release date has been set, the article suggests the prospect of the film premiering at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.
Liv Ullman to appear at NYFF
Iconic Swedish actress Liv Ullman will be making an appearance at the 50th New York Film Festival next month, Moveline reports. She will be stopping by the festival on October 1 for a screening of Liv and Ingmar, Dheeraj Akolkar's documentary about Ullman's personal and professional relationship with Ingmar Bergman. Narrated by Ullman, the doc uses clips and behind-the-scenes footage of their films as well as Ullman's personal photographs spanning the couple's 42-year relationship, which continued right up until Bergman's death in 2007. Liv & Ingmar screens at the New York Film Festival on October 1 & 9 as part of the Cinema Reflected series.
Scott and Dargis on film versus digital
Over at The New York Times, head critics A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis discuss the rapid rise of digital technology in cinema, from digital cameras having become the go-to format for low-budget filmmakers to movie studios running rampant with computer-generated digital effects in summer blockbusters. As Dargis observes, “We’re not talking about the disappearance of one material—oil, watercolor, acrylic or gouache—we’re talking about deep ontological and phenomenological shifts that are transforming a medium.” The shift is also the subject of Christopher Kenneally's documentary Side by Side, now playing daily in the Film Center Amphitheater.
