MONTREAL -- Congorama, a subdued comedy about a Belgian man discovering his roots in rural Quebec, grabbed top honors Sunday night at the Prix Jutras, Quebec's film awards.
The French-language feature, which closed the Directors' Fortnight at last year's Festival de Cannes, earned Philippe Falardeau the best director and best screenplay trophies, and producers Luc Dery and Kim McCraw the Jutra for best film.
In addition, Congorama's Paul Ahmarani and Olivier Gourmet shared the best actor prize, while co-star Gabriel Arcand grabbed the trophy for best supporting actor.
The other big winner at this year's Jutras was the Rwanda drama Un dimanche a Kigali, which nabbed six trophies, all in craft categories. These included Pierre Mignot earning the best cinematography prize, Jorane getting the prize for best original music, and Michele Hamel earning the Jutra for best costumes.
Robert Favreau's Un dimanche a Kigali also earned a best art direction prize for Andre-Line Beauparlant, the best sound prized shared by Claude La Haye, Hans Peter Strobl, Marie-Claude Gagne, and the prize for best makeup by Marie-Angele Breitner.
The French-language feature, which closed the Directors' Fortnight at last year's Festival de Cannes, earned Philippe Falardeau the best director and best screenplay trophies, and producers Luc Dery and Kim McCraw the Jutra for best film.
In addition, Congorama's Paul Ahmarani and Olivier Gourmet shared the best actor prize, while co-star Gabriel Arcand grabbed the trophy for best supporting actor.
The other big winner at this year's Jutras was the Rwanda drama Un dimanche a Kigali, which nabbed six trophies, all in craft categories. These included Pierre Mignot earning the best cinematography prize, Jorane getting the prize for best original music, and Michele Hamel earning the Jutra for best costumes.
Robert Favreau's Un dimanche a Kigali also earned a best art direction prize for Andre-Line Beauparlant, the best sound prized shared by Claude La Haye, Hans Peter Strobl, Marie-Claude Gagne, and the prize for best makeup by Marie-Angele Breitner.
- 2/20/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
An amazing movie about the downfall of scrappy Panamanian strongman Manuel "Tony" Noriega, "Noriega: God's Favorite" looked great on the big screen of the Granada Theatre, where the Roger Spottiswoode-directed film premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival.
Alas, despite its availability to distributors, the less than-$6
million production has not landed a theatrical deal. It is set to air April 2 on Showtime.
Although more festival showcases are certainly in order, most of the intended mature audience will discover the project's many virtues over time through cable play dates and a long ancillary shelf life. Written by journalist and nonfiction author Lawrence Wright, adapting his just-published debut novel "God's Favorite", "Noriega" stars Bob Hoskins in another superb performance -- arguably his greatest yet -- with a well-picked supporting cast of veterans and relatively unfamiliar faces.
Starting with the torture and murder of Noriega's well-known foe Hugo Spadafora in 1985 and climaxing with the general's seeking shelter from American soldiers and outraged Panamanians inside the Vatican Embassy, "Noriega" is a wild tale that many potential viewers are probably not fully acquainted with.
The filmmakers and Wright make no promises of accuracy on every detail, conversation, date or even names and faces. But in the tradition of art "re-imagining" reality, "Noriega" is a major success, bringing to a potentially wide audience a film that is literate, challenging, even a tad controversial in its occasionally sympathetic portrayal of the "Little General".
Intricately constructed around the spiritual and international crisis Noriega confronts when the invasion of 1989 ends his corrupt career -- using a fictional confession to periodically provide insights into the protagonist's complex mind -- "Noriega" is intelligently lurid, unabashedly funny and sickeningly violent.
It holds too many oddities and subtle storytelling flourishes to begin to do justice to a one-of-a-kind experience that, for example, features a sunny scene on a boat with Gen. Tony, a bevy of topless girls and Oliver North (Edward Edwards) talking about their troubles with Contras and Colombians.
Or, if that's not wicked enough, there's the scene where tough chit-chatting Fidel Castro (Michael Sorich) sticks Tony with the bill at an intimate summit in a Havana nightclub.
An alcoholic despot whose primary beliefs are "forget the past" and that God has given him extraordinary luck, Tony is a big, bad, bisexual barrio boy turned "tin-pot fascist," with a sultry mistress (Rosa Blasi), a witch doctor, loyal second in command Roberto (Tony Plana), who "knows too much," and, last but not least, a jealous wife (Denise Blasor).
After the Spadafora affair, Noriega drives Panamanian President Nicky Balretta (Luis Avalos) to resign and also banishes Roberto, while making a big show of holding elections. As the forces of betrayed drug lords, American intelligence and military and his own internal critics close in, Noriega brutally overturns the results of the election and stops a coup by Roberto's replacement (Nestor Carbonell) in its tracks with a well-placed phone call and his own fierce personality -- a tremendous sequence that Hoskins pulls off spectacularly.
With an excellent soundtrack of Latin-flavored songs and instrumentals, the well-paced, entirely absorbing scenario concludes with Noriega and a savvy papal nuncio (Jeffrey Demunn) enduring the U.S. military's barrage of hard-rock music in a bizarre standoff.
And Tony's story is not over yet, we learn in the finale. Convicted of racketeering and drug trafficking and serving a 30-year sentence in federal prison in Miami, Noriega is eligible for parole this year.
Filmed in the Philippines, the production is first-rate in all regards. Pierre Mignot's cinematography, Owen Paterson's production design and Florence-Isabelle Megginson's costumes work together magically to help fully realize the perceptive, at times playful, cinematic ministerings of Spottiswoode ("Tomorrow Never Dies", Showtime's "Hiroshima").
NORIEGA: GOD'S FAVORITE
Showtime Networks
Showtime and Regency Enterprises present
A Nancy Hardin/Industry
Entertainment production
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Screenwriter: Lawrence Wright
Producer: Nancy Hardin
Executive producers: Arnon Milchan,
Nick Wechsler, Roger Spottiswoode
Director of photography: Pierre Mignot
Production designer: Owen Paterson
Editor: Mark Conte
Costume designer: Florence-Isabelle Megginson
Casting: Judith Holstra
Color/stereo
Cast:
Manuel "Tony" Noriega: Bob Hoskins
Papal nuncio: Jeffrey Demunn
Roberto: Tony Plana
Maj. Giroldi: Nestor Carbonell
Vicky: Rosa Blasi
Felicidad: Denise Blasor
President Nicky Barletta: Luis Avalos
Running time -- 120 minutes
No MPAA rating...
Alas, despite its availability to distributors, the less than-$6
million production has not landed a theatrical deal. It is set to air April 2 on Showtime.
Although more festival showcases are certainly in order, most of the intended mature audience will discover the project's many virtues over time through cable play dates and a long ancillary shelf life. Written by journalist and nonfiction author Lawrence Wright, adapting his just-published debut novel "God's Favorite", "Noriega" stars Bob Hoskins in another superb performance -- arguably his greatest yet -- with a well-picked supporting cast of veterans and relatively unfamiliar faces.
Starting with the torture and murder of Noriega's well-known foe Hugo Spadafora in 1985 and climaxing with the general's seeking shelter from American soldiers and outraged Panamanians inside the Vatican Embassy, "Noriega" is a wild tale that many potential viewers are probably not fully acquainted with.
The filmmakers and Wright make no promises of accuracy on every detail, conversation, date or even names and faces. But in the tradition of art "re-imagining" reality, "Noriega" is a major success, bringing to a potentially wide audience a film that is literate, challenging, even a tad controversial in its occasionally sympathetic portrayal of the "Little General".
Intricately constructed around the spiritual and international crisis Noriega confronts when the invasion of 1989 ends his corrupt career -- using a fictional confession to periodically provide insights into the protagonist's complex mind -- "Noriega" is intelligently lurid, unabashedly funny and sickeningly violent.
It holds too many oddities and subtle storytelling flourishes to begin to do justice to a one-of-a-kind experience that, for example, features a sunny scene on a boat with Gen. Tony, a bevy of topless girls and Oliver North (Edward Edwards) talking about their troubles with Contras and Colombians.
Or, if that's not wicked enough, there's the scene where tough chit-chatting Fidel Castro (Michael Sorich) sticks Tony with the bill at an intimate summit in a Havana nightclub.
An alcoholic despot whose primary beliefs are "forget the past" and that God has given him extraordinary luck, Tony is a big, bad, bisexual barrio boy turned "tin-pot fascist," with a sultry mistress (Rosa Blasi), a witch doctor, loyal second in command Roberto (Tony Plana), who "knows too much," and, last but not least, a jealous wife (Denise Blasor).
After the Spadafora affair, Noriega drives Panamanian President Nicky Balretta (Luis Avalos) to resign and also banishes Roberto, while making a big show of holding elections. As the forces of betrayed drug lords, American intelligence and military and his own internal critics close in, Noriega brutally overturns the results of the election and stops a coup by Roberto's replacement (Nestor Carbonell) in its tracks with a well-placed phone call and his own fierce personality -- a tremendous sequence that Hoskins pulls off spectacularly.
With an excellent soundtrack of Latin-flavored songs and instrumentals, the well-paced, entirely absorbing scenario concludes with Noriega and a savvy papal nuncio (Jeffrey Demunn) enduring the U.S. military's barrage of hard-rock music in a bizarre standoff.
And Tony's story is not over yet, we learn in the finale. Convicted of racketeering and drug trafficking and serving a 30-year sentence in federal prison in Miami, Noriega is eligible for parole this year.
Filmed in the Philippines, the production is first-rate in all regards. Pierre Mignot's cinematography, Owen Paterson's production design and Florence-Isabelle Megginson's costumes work together magically to help fully realize the perceptive, at times playful, cinematic ministerings of Spottiswoode ("Tomorrow Never Dies", Showtime's "Hiroshima").
NORIEGA: GOD'S FAVORITE
Showtime Networks
Showtime and Regency Enterprises present
A Nancy Hardin/Industry
Entertainment production
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Screenwriter: Lawrence Wright
Producer: Nancy Hardin
Executive producers: Arnon Milchan,
Nick Wechsler, Roger Spottiswoode
Director of photography: Pierre Mignot
Production designer: Owen Paterson
Editor: Mark Conte
Costume designer: Florence-Isabelle Megginson
Casting: Judith Holstra
Color/stereo
Cast:
Manuel "Tony" Noriega: Bob Hoskins
Papal nuncio: Jeffrey Demunn
Roberto: Tony Plana
Maj. Giroldi: Nestor Carbonell
Vicky: Rosa Blasi
Felicidad: Denise Blasor
President Nicky Barletta: Luis Avalos
Running time -- 120 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 3/10/2000
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Yet another in a seemingly endless series of dark coming-of-age films from French Canada, "Not Me" ranks far below the cream of the crop.
It's a wildly pretentious and numbingly tedious portrait of a boy who's determined, after witnessing his parents partaking in some mildly kinky sex play, to remain a child forever. This first feature by Pierre Gang has inexplicably been chosen by Canada as its best bet for a best foreign-language film Oscar nod.
Screened recently at the Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival, the picture is set in Quebec, circa 1967, coinciding with Montreal's Expo and Canada's centennial. It is seen through the eyes of young Rene (Richard Moffatt), a somewhat strange, ultra-serious 11-year-old who is permanently traumatized after confusing his parent's carnal interlude for an act of violence. Of course, it doesn't help matters when his dad is discovered the next morning lying dead in bed of an apparent heart attack.
Equating sex with death, Rene refuses to grow up, remaining a pre-adolescent as the rest of his family matures and his waitress mother (Louise Portal) goes through several different hair colors. When she hooks up with a new boyfriend, the swaggering Roch (Patrice Godin), the possessive Rene begins to drop hints that his mother should put Roch out of the picture in the same manner he believes she took care of his drunken father.
Ultimately, and remarkably without therapy, Rene gets over his little hang-up, and, armed with the knowledge that sex can be a beautiful thing, he relinquishes childhood and embraces manhood a mere nine years off schedule.
While Gang's script and direction is as pompous as the synopsis would imply, his cast, particularly newcomer Moffatt and veteran Quebec film star Portal, is faultless, delivering grounded, committed performances.
Impressive also are the technical contributions, beginning with the usual fine cinematography from frequent Altman collaborator Pierre Mignot and backed by terrific period touches from art director Francois Laplante ("Le Confessional") and costume designer Suzanne Harel ("Joshua Then and Now") who lend the late 1960s setting a remarkable palpability.
It's a shame their fine work couldn't have been attached to a better film.
NOT ME (Sous-sol)
Malofilm International
Director-screenwriter Pierre Gang
Producer Roger Frappier
Director of photography Pierre Mignot
Production designer Francois Laplante
Editor Florence Moureaux
Costume designer Suzanne Harel
Music Anne Bourne, Ken Myrh
Color/stereo
Cast:
Reine Louise Portal
Francoise Isabelle Pasco
Roch Patrice Godin
Raymond Daniel Gadouas
Rene Richard Moffatt
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
It's a wildly pretentious and numbingly tedious portrait of a boy who's determined, after witnessing his parents partaking in some mildly kinky sex play, to remain a child forever. This first feature by Pierre Gang has inexplicably been chosen by Canada as its best bet for a best foreign-language film Oscar nod.
Screened recently at the Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival, the picture is set in Quebec, circa 1967, coinciding with Montreal's Expo and Canada's centennial. It is seen through the eyes of young Rene (Richard Moffatt), a somewhat strange, ultra-serious 11-year-old who is permanently traumatized after confusing his parent's carnal interlude for an act of violence. Of course, it doesn't help matters when his dad is discovered the next morning lying dead in bed of an apparent heart attack.
Equating sex with death, Rene refuses to grow up, remaining a pre-adolescent as the rest of his family matures and his waitress mother (Louise Portal) goes through several different hair colors. When she hooks up with a new boyfriend, the swaggering Roch (Patrice Godin), the possessive Rene begins to drop hints that his mother should put Roch out of the picture in the same manner he believes she took care of his drunken father.
Ultimately, and remarkably without therapy, Rene gets over his little hang-up, and, armed with the knowledge that sex can be a beautiful thing, he relinquishes childhood and embraces manhood a mere nine years off schedule.
While Gang's script and direction is as pompous as the synopsis would imply, his cast, particularly newcomer Moffatt and veteran Quebec film star Portal, is faultless, delivering grounded, committed performances.
Impressive also are the technical contributions, beginning with the usual fine cinematography from frequent Altman collaborator Pierre Mignot and backed by terrific period touches from art director Francois Laplante ("Le Confessional") and costume designer Suzanne Harel ("Joshua Then and Now") who lend the late 1960s setting a remarkable palpability.
It's a shame their fine work couldn't have been attached to a better film.
NOT ME (Sous-sol)
Malofilm International
Director-screenwriter Pierre Gang
Producer Roger Frappier
Director of photography Pierre Mignot
Production designer Francois Laplante
Editor Florence Moureaux
Costume designer Suzanne Harel
Music Anne Bourne, Ken Myrh
Color/stereo
Cast:
Reine Louise Portal
Francoise Isabelle Pasco
Roch Patrice Godin
Raymond Daniel Gadouas
Rene Richard Moffatt
Running time -- 90 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 2/11/1997
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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