ICS nominations: Who the hell is Anton Adasinsky?

And now for something completely different? That old Monty Python classic was on our mind as we perused the nominations revealed today by the International Cinephile Society for their 11th ICS Awards. Known for always making the most idiosyncratic picks of the awards season, they sure don’t disappoint this year. Where else would Xavier Dolan’s Laurence Anyways pick up six nominations (we’ll save you the search, the answer is ‘nowhere’)? Who else would pick Juliette Binoche for her performance in Bruno Dumont’s Camille Claudel, 1915? And who would have thought of nominating the devil himself for in Aleksander Sokurov’s Faust (because that is who Anton Adasinsky portrays; he’s in the picture above)? Outlandish nominees, you say? Sure, but this is a group that doesn’t follow the trends, but likes to set them. In terms of Oscars, these nominations do not mean much, but in terms of good films beyond the Oscar favorites, you can’t do much better than the choices in this set.

The wealth was spread this year in the nominations, which results in an eclectic group of four films leading with seven nods: Blue Is The Warmest Color, Inside Llewyn Davis, Her, and 12 Years A Slave. Known for not being as Anglo-centric as most other organizations, there are three non-English film in the Best Picture category (Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty follows the already mentioned Blue and Laurence Anyways), and seven out of twenty performances not in the English language. There is also a strong showing by films a diverse as experience documentary Leviathan, Spanish silent film Blancanieves, and Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha, arguably the US indie film of the year.

Don’t forget to check out their recommended list of fifteen films which were not released in the US in 2013, but might be this year. Some of them will surely feature in their nominations next year, and usually they turn out to be damn good films.

PICTURE
12 Years a Slave
Before Midnight
Blue is the Warmest Color
Frances Ha
Gravity
The Great Beauty
Her
Inside Llewyn Davis
Laurence Anyways
Spring Breakers
The Wolf of Wall Street

DIRECTOR
Ethan Coen & Joel Coen – Inside Llewyn Davis
Alfonso Cuarón – Gravity
Xavier Dolan – Laurence Anyways
Spike Jonze – Her
Abdellatif Kechiche – Blue is the Warmest Color
Paolo Sorrentino – The Great Beauty

FILM NOT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE
Beyond the Hills
Blancanieves
Blue is the Warmest Color
Faust
The Great Beauty
The Hunt
In the House
Laurence Anyways
The Past
A Touch of Sin

ACTOR
Leonardo DiCaprio – The Wolf of Wall Street
Chiwetel Ejiofor – 12 Years a Slave
Oscar Isaac – Inside Llewyn Davis
Mads Mikkelsen – The Hunt
Joaquin Phoenix – Her
Melvil Poupaud – Laurence Anyways

ACTRESS
Juliette Binoche – Camille Claudel 1915
Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine
Suzanne Clément – Laurence Anyways
Adèle Exarchopoulos – Blue is the Warmest Color
Greta Gerwig – Frances Ha

SUPPORTING ACTOR
Anton Adasinsky – Faust
Michael Fassbender – 12 Years a Slave
James Franco – Spring Breakers
Jared Leto – Dallas Buyers Club
Matthew McConaughey – Mud

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Sally Hawkins – Blue Jasmine
Scarlett Johansson – Her
Lupita Nyong’o – 12 Years a Slave
Léa Seydoux – Blue is the Warmest Color
Kristin Scott Thomas – Only God Forgives

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Blue Jasmine – Woody Allen
Frances Ha – Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig
Her – Spike Jonze
Inside Llewyn Davis – Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
Laurence Anyways – Xavier Dolan

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
12 Years a Slave – John Ridley
Before Midnight – Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke
Blue is the Warmest Color – Abdellatif Kechiche, Ghalia Lacroix
In the House – François Ozon
Short Term 12 – Destin Cretton

CINEMATOGRAPHY
Blancanieves – Kiko de la Rica
Faust – Bruno Delbonnel
Gravity – Emmanuel Lubezki
Inside Llewyn Davis – Bruno Delbonnel
Leviathan – Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel

EDITING
Blue is the Warmest Color – Sophie Brunet, Ghalia Lacroix, Albertine Lastera, Jean-Marie Lengelle, Camille Toubkis
Frances Ha – Jennifer Lame
Gravity – Alfonso Cuarón, Mark Sanger
Leviathan – Lucien Castaing-Taylor, Verena Paravel
Spring Breakers – Douglas Crise
The Wolf of Wall Street – Thelma Schoonmaker

PRODUCTION DESIGN
Blancanieves – Alain Bainée
Faust – Elena Zhukova
The Great Gatsby – Catherine Martin
Her – K.K. Barrett
Inside Llewyn Davis – Jess Gonchor

ORIGINAL SCORE
12 Years a Slave – Hans Zimmer
All is Lost – Alex Ebert
Blancanieves – Alfonso de Vilallonga
The Great Beauty – Lele Marchitelli
Her – Owen Pallett

ENSEMBLE
12 Years a Slave
American Hustle
Frances Ha
Inside Llewyn Davis
Short Term 12

ANIMATED FILM
Ernest & Célestine
From Up On Poppy Hill
Frozen
Monsters University
The Wind Rises

DOCUMENTARY
The Act of Killing
At Berkeley
Leviathan
Room 237
Stories We Tell

BEST PICTURE NOT RELEASED IN 2013
Child’s Pose
The Congress
Gloria
Home from Home: Chronicle of a Vision
The Immigrant
Like Father, Like Son
Norte, The End of History
Only Lovers Left Alive
The Rendez-Vous of Déjà-Vu
Snowpiercer
The Strange Little Cat
Stranger by the Lake
Stray Dogs
Tom at the Farm
Young & Beautiful