Sunday evening sees Hollywood’s 87th annual glitterfest arrive with one of the strongest selections of nominated films in recent memory.
Studio politics and industry favourites mean the results can lean towards mediocrity, with inexplicable omissions from the nominations. It’s difficult to predict on quality of content alone, but impossible to deny the weight a win will carry. It is, with the exception of Cannes’ Palme d’Or, the world’s most coveted film prize.
The buzz surrounding Michael Keaton’s comeback in Birdman is deafening – while in Danish cinemas we’ve seen Boyhood, which remains my favourite for Best Director and Best Picture and Foxcatcher for which Steve Carrell has received a Best Actor nomination and Mark Ruffalo a much deserved nod for Best Supporting Actor. The Polish-Danish film Ida and Russia’s Leviathan lead the nominations for Best Foreign Film.
This week sees our last pre-Oscar release at the cinemas with Whiplash, which is nominated for Best Picture and reviewed in this issue.
Elsewhere, Cinemateket continues with a season of works by British horrormeister Clive Barker, while an exhibition of his paintings accompanies the films over at Nørrebro’s Galeri Oxholm.
There’s also a four-day event (Thursday to Sunday) of Kurdish cinema that kicks off with festival favourite Song of my Mother on Thursday at 20:30.
Nigar, an ageing mother in Istanbul longs to return to her home village after being forced to leave during ethnic clashes in the 1990s. Her son, on the other hand, is quite settled in the big city and refuses to return home with her. See dfi.dk/Filmhuset for details. All films are subtitled in English.
Huset joins forces with Goethe-Institut Dänemark to play host to the Copenhagen Short Film Festival. The event also runs from Thursday to Sunday and showcases many international, award-winning shorts in various disciplines and genres.
Prices are 50kr per program of shorts and 75kr per night (two programs) with a festival pass costing 250kr. See huset-kbh.dk for details.
