‘All of Us Strangers’ and ‘Close Your Eyes’ Lead 21st International Cinephile Society (ICS) Nominations
The International Cinephile Society (ICS) has announced its nominations honoring films shown worldwide in 2023 where Victor Erice’s Close Your Eyes and Andrew Haigh’s All of Us Strangers led with 10 nominations apiece.
Andrew Haigh’s emotional ghost story All of Us Strangers was nominated for picture, director, screenplay, actor Andrew Scott, supporting actor Jamie Bell, supporting actress Claire Foy and best ensemble, as well as cinematography, editing and sound design. The film tells the story of Adam, a gay screenwriter, who stands silhouetted in the strange glow of his empty London tower block, mesmerized by the beautiful view and by a sexy neighbor who wants to connect. Alternately, he travels to his long-dead parents’ cozy home in the suburbs, trying to pull his troubled past out of hiding. But perhaps everyone he knows is a ghost, and there is no reality for this melancholy man who has always felt so alone.
Legendary director Victor Erice returned this year from a long hiatus with Close Your Eyes, the mystifying tale of an actor who disappears in the middle of a film shoot – presumably by accident or suicide, although no body is ever found. The repercussions for his daughter, his director, his editor and others are lifelong, and life-changing. Close Your Eyes shared ICS’s top nomination count with 10 nods including picture, director, original screenplay, actor Manolo Solo and supporting actor José Coronado. Fittingly, Ana Torrent, child star of Erice’s 1973 masterpiece The Spirit of the Beehive, also returned to claim rare double noms in supporting actress, for this film and for Victor Iriarte’s Foremost by Night.
Justine Triet’s dysfunctional marriage saga Anatomy of a Fall came next with 8 mentions. While a partially blind boy (Milo Machado Graner) tries to sort out his loyalties, his German mother (a magnificent Sandra Hüller) goes on trial – for supposedly murdering her husband – in a French courtroom replete with more entertaining dramatics than anyone (apart from co-writers Triet and Arthur Harari) could possibly imagine.
Three other exceptional films earned the trifecta of best picture, director and screenplay noms: Jonathan Glazer’s haunting Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest; Lila Avilés’ Tótem, the story of a little girl coming to terms with her father’s deadly illness; and Radu Jude’s wildly inventive satire Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World. In addition, a couple of impressive debuts – Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell (Pham Thien An) and Foremost by Night (Victor Iriarte) – made the leap onto our best picture list, along with Claire Simon’s moving gynecology documentary Our Body and animation master Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron.
Winners of the 21st ICS Awards will be announced on February 10. Here is the complete list of nominations.
PICTURE
• All of Us Strangers
• Anatomy of a Fall
• The Boy and the Heron
• Close Your Eyes
• The Delinquents
• Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
• Fallen Leaves
• Foremost by Night
• Here
• The Human Surge 3
• Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell
• Killers of the Flower Moon
• La Chimera
• May December
• Our Body
• Poor Things
• Samsara
• Society of the Snow
• Tótem
• The Zone of Interest
DIRECTOR
• Lila Avilés – Tótem
• Victor Erice – Close Your Eyes
• Jonathan Glazer – The Zone of Interest
• Andrew Haigh – All of Us Strangers
• Radu Jude – Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
• Justine Triet – Anatomy of a Fall
ACTOR
• Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers
• Karim Leklou – Sons of Ramses
• Josh O’Connor – La Chimera
• Andrew Scott – All of Us Strangers
• Manolo Solo – Close Your Eyes
• Koji Yakusho – Perfect Days
ACTRESS
• Lily Gladstone – Killers of the Flower Moon
• Sandra Hüller – Anatomy of a Fall
• Ilinca Manolache – Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
• Alma Pöysti – Fallen Leaves
• Emma Stone – Poor Things
• Teyana Taylor – A Thousand and One
SUPPORTING ACTOR
• Jamie Bell – All of Us Strangers
• José Coronado – Close Your Eyes
• Mateo Garcia – Tótem
• Milo Machado Graner – Anatomy of a Fall
• Charles Melton – May December
• Ben Whishaw – Passages
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
• Claire Foy – All of Us Strangers
• Julianne Moore – May December
• Da’Vine Joy Randolph – The Holdovers
• Catalina Saavedra – Rotting in the Sun
• Ana Torrent – Close Your Eyes
• Ana Torrent – Foremost by Night
ENSEMBLE
• All of Us Strangers
• Anatomy of a Fall
• Asteroid City
• Close Your Eyes
• Society of the Snow
• Tótem
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
• Afire – Christian Petzold
• Anatomy of a Fall – Justine Triet, Arthur Harari
• Close Your Eyes – Victor Erice, Michel Gaztambide
• Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – Radu Jude
• May December – Samy Burch, Alex Mechanik
• Monster – Yuji Sakamoto
• Tótem – Lila Avilés
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
• All of Us Strangers – Andrew Haigh
• The Beast in the Jungle – Patric Chiha, Jihane Chouaib, Axelle Ropert
• Killers of the Flower Moon – Eric Roth, Martin Scorsese
• Poor Things – Tony McNamara
• Society of the Snow – J.A. Bayona, Jaime Marques, Bernat Vilaplana, Nicolás Casariego
• The Zone of Interest – Jonathan Glazer
CINEMATOGRAPHY
• All of Us Strangers – Jamie Ramsay
• Close Your Eyes – Valentín Álvarez
• Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell – Dinh Duy Hung
• La Chimera – Hélène Louvart
• Samsara – Mauro Herce, Jessica Sarah Rinland
• The Zone of Interest – Lukasz Zal
EDITING
• All of Us Strangers – Jonathan Alberts
• Anatomy of a Fall – Laurent Sénéchal
• Close Your Eyes – Ascen Marchena
• Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World – Catalin Cristutiu
• Oppenheimer – Jennifer Lame
• Society of the Snow – Andrés Gil, Jaume Martí
PRODUCTION DESIGN
• Asteroid City – Adam Stockhausen, Kris Moran
• Barbie – Sarah Greenwood, Katie Spencer
• Close Your Eyes – Curru Garabal
• Foremost by Night – Katixa Silva, Izaskun Urkijo
• Killers of the Flower Moon – Jack Fisk, Adam Willis
• Poor Things – Shona Heath, James Price, Zsuzsa Mihalek
SCORE
• The Boy and the Heron – Joe Hisaishi
• Disco Boy – Vitalic
• Killers of the Flower Moon – Robbie Robertson
• Monster – Ryuichi Sakamoto
• A Thousand and One – Gary Gunn
• The Zone of Interest – Mica Levi
SOUND DESIGN
• All of Us Strangers – Joakim Sundström
• The Boy and the Heron – Koji Kasamatsu
• Maestro – Richard King, Steve Morrow, Tom Ozanich, Jason Ruder, Dean Zupancic
• Oppenheimer – Richard King, Kevin O’Connell, Gary A. Rizzo, Willie Burton
• Samsara – Xabier Erkizia, Luca Rulio
• The Zone of Interest – Johnnie Burn, Tarn Willers
ANIMATED FILM
• The Boy and the Heron – Hayao Miyazaki
• Chicken for Linda! – Sébastien Laudenbach, Chiara Malta
• Mars Express – Jérémie Périn
• Robot Dreams – Pablo Berger
• Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse – Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
• Suzume – Makoto Shinkai
DOCUMENTARY
• Bye Bye Tiberias – Lina Soualem
• The Mother of All Lies – Asmae El Moudir
• Orlando, My Political Biography – Paul B. Preciado
• Our Body – Claire Simon
• Pictures of Ghosts – Kleber Mendonça Filho
• Youth (Spring) – Wang Bing
DEBUT FILM
• 20,000 Species of Bees – Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren
• Chien de la casse – Jean-Baptiste Durand
• Foremost by Night – Víctor Iriarte
• Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell – Pham Thien An
• Past Lives – Celine Song
• Patagonia – Simone Bozzelli
BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE
• Milo Machado Graner – Anatomy of a Fall
• Ilinca Manolache – Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World
• Charles Melton – May December
• Sofía Otero – 20,000 Species of Bees
• Raphaël Quenard – Chien de la casse
• Naima Senties – Tótem
• Dominic Sessa – The Holdovers
He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.
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