----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>----------------------------Original message----------------------------
>
>As a followup on the question of racism at the Oscars and in Hollywood in
>general, could someone in the know please tell me if the major European
>film festivals - Cannes, Venice, Berlin, etc. are as Eurocentric in their
>awarding of prizes as the Academy is in theirs?
>
>Thanks in advance,
>
>William Brooks
==============================================
Absolutely not.
The major European festivals, no matter what their lapses in judgment,
taste, and so on, play fair, so to speak, with all nations of the world.
Winners have been from all over, including the USA (with a vengeance).
Between 1949 and 1991, Cannes "Palmes d'Or" for Best Picture went to Japan
(1954, 1980) Algeria (1975), Turkey (if you think of this country as
fractionally European) (82) etc. Jury Prizes to Japan (64, 65, 90). Best
director to Japan (78),Argentina(88) etc. Plus Chinese, Indian,North
African, African, Iranian et al. movies, especially if you consider the
many other,important prizes given by the Festival, the Critics' Week, the
Directors' Fortnight, the Golden Camera (first film),others, plus last but
not least the very weigthy prize of FIPRESCI -- the International
Federation of Cinema Critics.
(Above info. incomplete)
Of course, with the larger "exportable" Anglophone or European films, a
huge slice of the Palme d'Or pie had gone to them. But the major Festivals
- as well as other important ones - systematically encourage the discovery
of films from the entire planet Earth, with prizes doing much promotion for
films that the Oscar people would not dream of considering.
Edwin Jahiel, Cinema Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
" Le mauvais gout mene au crime" (Stendhal)
|