AwardsWatch Podcast Ep. 245: Looking at the Top Awards Contenders of the Venice, TIFF and NYFF Lineups

On episode 245 of The AwardsWatch Podcast, we’re doing things a little different. Splitting off from the main pod that drops on Mondays, AwardsWatch Editor-In-Chief Erik Anderson, Executive Editor Ryan McQuade and Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello focus on the fall festivals and the awards contenders that will potentially come from them. A leaner, shorter conversation, we’ll be sharing hosting duties and digging into how important these festival plays, and which ones, can be a crucial part of the awards campaign.

Looking at the Venice, New York and Toronto film festivals (which was recorded ahead of yesterday’s TIFF‘s Centerpiece and NYFF main slate announcements), we talk about New York’s Opening, Centerpiece and Closing films with RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys, Pedro Almodóvar’s The Room Next Door and Steve McQueen’s Blitz, respectively. NYFF is also a great playground for Cannes winners, which we expect to see show up. We also have a few potential outliers, Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night and James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown, that haven’t been announced for any festival yet that could pop up later. We talk a bit about Telluride (we’ll do a singular pod on that soon), where the Reitman film could debut, and even earning the director a medallion on the mountain. We have a lot to say about Pablo Larraín’s Maria and Luca Guadagnino’s Queer, both premiering at Venice in a matter of weeks, still not having any U.S. distribution. While Maria, based on the date it’s hitting the Lido, is likely to show up at Telluride, Queer definitely won’t. Where else could it be this season?

We talk about the strange reveal of Edward Berger’s Conclave earning a PG rating from the MPA. The buzzy papal thriller beach read could be reverse appealed by Focus Features to up it to a PG-13 to give the film more adult gravitas (the only recent Best Picture nominee rated PG has been Greta Gerwig’s Little Women). Searchlight Pictures dropped news that Jesse Eisenberg’s Sundance winner A Real Pain will move off its original October 18 bow to November 1, opening the door for a much bigger fall festival run right before it premieres. We close with BAFTA revealing a host changes to voting and eligibility in nearly all categories (including getting rid of the way the juries decide nominees) and introducing a whole new category, Best Children’s and Family Film.

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This podcast runs 51m. We will be back next week on the main show to do another Oscar retrospective episode over the 52nd Academy Awards and the films of 1979. Till then, let’s get into it.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro)