Hollywood
Trophy buzz Golden Globes and Oscars: Who is there?
Director Ilker Çatak speaks at the press conference for the film “The Teacher’s Room” at the Berlinale. photo
© Monika Skolimowska/dpa
The Oscars won’t be awarded until March, but Hollywood is already in awards fever. The Golden Globe contenders will be named on Monday. Germans are also among the favorites this trophy season.
The trophy buzz, the whispers and the speculation about the favorites of the film awards season have long since begun. “Maestro”, “Killers of the Flower Moon”, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” are highly rated.
German names are also swirling around Hollywood. Critics give Sandra Hülser, Franz Rogowski and director Ilker Çatak good chances. Çatak’s film “The Teacher’s Room” is entered into the running for the foreign Oscar by Germany.
The industry is now looking forward to the Golden Globe nominations. The candidates in the film and TV divisions will be announced on Monday (December 11th). The 81st award ceremony is scheduled to take place on January 7th. Then the Academy Awards follow: The Oscar nominations are scheduled for January 23rd, the 96th trophy show for March 10th. In between there are countless industry awards, for example from the US Actors Association, producers and critics groups.
Critics’ favorites and winning films
After the film festivals in Cannes, Toronto and Venice, critics’ favorites and winning films have stood out. One of the drama favorites is “Maestro” about the life of the US composer Leonard Bernstein. It is the second directorial project for Bradley Cooper, who also stars in it. There is particular praise for Carey Mulligan as Bernstein’s wife Felicia Montealegre – and the debate about Cooper’s nose enlargement with the help of a prosthesis is causing further buzz.
Martin Scorsese’s historical thriller “Killers of the Flower Moon” about the indigenous Osage people who fell victim to a crime in Oklahoma in the 1920s is also considered a frontrunner – starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Gladstone and Robert De Niro. “Oppenheimer” director Christopher Nolan and Cillian Murphy, who plays the physicist and inventor of the atomic bomb Robert Oppenheimer, can also hope for prizes.
Drama and comedy at Golden Globes
At the same time as “Oppenheimer”, Greta Gerwig’s hit film “Barbie” was released in July, which led to the creation of the word “Barbenheimer”. The satire “Barbie” about the iconic doll (portrayed by Margot Robbie) and Ken (Ryan Gosling) is considered a comedy favorite. The bizarre art house fairy tale “Poor Things” with Emma Stone, by director Giorgos Lanthimos, is also a hot candidate – as is Alexander Payne’s comedy drama “The Holdovers”, with Paul Giamatti in the lead role as the grumpy boarding school teacher. At the Golden Globes, drama and comedy awards are given, while at the Oscars there is only one “Best Film”.
The actresses this award season are Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”), Margot Robbie (“Barbie”), Emma Stone (“Poor Things”) and Natalie Portman (“May December “) traded highly.
The German actress Sandra Hülser (“Toni Erdmann”) could win twice. The 45-year-old is given opportunities for her roles in “Anatomy of a Case” and “Zone of Interest”. In the legal thriller “Anatomy of a Case”, the winning film at the Cannes Festival, Hülser plays a woman suspected of murder. “The Zone of Interest” is about the life of concentration camp commander Rudolf Höß (Christian Friedel) and his family. Hülser plays Höß’ wife Hedwig. The drama by British director Jonathan Glazer won the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes.
Hopes for Franz Rogowski
In the men’s squad, alongside stars like Cillian Murphy, Bradley Cooper and Leonardo DiCaprio, the German actor Franz Rogowski can hope for further prizes. It was only at the end of November that the 37-year-old was named best actor by the New York critics’ association NYFCC for his role in the relationship drama “Passages.” Last year Colin Farrell (“The Banshees of Inisherin”) won this award and was later nominated for a leading actor Oscar.
Rogowski was also nominated on Tuesday (December 5th) for best acting performance at the Independent Spirit Awards, which will be held in Los Angeles at the end of February. Jessica Chastain (“Memory”) and Natalie Portman (“May December”) are among those represented in this gender-neutral division.
The drama “Passages” by Ira Sachs tells of a toxic love triangle. Rogowski plays a filmmaker living in Paris who is married to a man but begins an affair with a woman.
Ilker Çatak appears calm
The director Ilker Çatak (39) has already won many awards with the drama “The Teacher’s Room”. At the German Film Prize ceremony in May there were five Lolas, including best feature film, for Çatak’s direction and screenplay. “The Teacher’s Room” tells of a conflict at a school that gets out of hand. The focus is on a young teacher (Leonie Benesch) who wants to solve a series of thefts at her school.
In mid-December, the Oscar Academy will announce a shortlist of 15 international applicants, five of which will make it to the final round in January. If nominated, “The Teacher’s Room” follows the great triumph of the German anti-war drama “All Quiet in the West,” which won three other Oscars in addition to the foreign Oscar last March.
Çatak sees this calmly. “I think it’s great that we from Germany are sending such different films into the race. And I’m very excited to see how the film will be received by the Academy people,” he said in a recent dpa interview. He would look forward to the Oscar competition “with a wink.”