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Entries in Awards (7)

Saturday
Jan262019

THE PRODUCER WHO SEDUCED THE PRESS AND WON HIS WIFE A GOLDEN GLOBE

Will the passing of a 95 year-old businessman in Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv finally provide closure to a scandal that has plagued the Golden Globes for 38 years?

Israeli businessman Meshulam Riklis died quietly with his family by side on Friday, January 25. He spent most of his childhood in the city, having arrived there with his family from Istandul, where he was born in 1923. From these humble beginnings, Riklis would prove himself an astute money market manipulator, launching and destroying business enterprises riding a wave of investment surges and bankruptcy purges on his way to a US$1billion empire. 

In 1977, while holding court in Las Vegas as co-owner of the iconic Riviera Casino, the 49 year-old left his wife to woo and ultimately wed a 19 year-old starlet named Pia Zadora. Within three years, his wealth and influence had carved out for her a career before the camera, a remarkable achievement given her somewhat limited range (her only previous on-screen role was in 1964’s Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, at age 10).

His grandest gesture was funding director Matt Cimber’s adaptation of James M. Cain’s 1946 novel, Butterfly as a vehicle for her. A sexed-up thriller about a devoutly religious coal-miner (Stacey Keach) who has an incestuous romp with his nymphette daughter (Zadora), the film featured some old Hollywood legends (Orson Welles, Stuart Whitman, June Lockhart) but was mauled by critics; in one of the kinder reviews, The New York Times referred to the “sleazy melodrama” as a “camp classic”, noting that “Miss Zadora is not a convincing actress,” calling her “spectacularly inept.”

However, Meshulam Riklis lived by the creed, “Whatever Pia wanted, Pia got,” (including photo shoots for Playboy and New York Magazine). Riklis cosied up the Golden Globe voting body, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), as only an ‘80s billionaire could do; he took an initial group to see Pia perform at the Riviera ahead of a lavish banquet and private screening of his wife’s comeback film, before repeating the hospitality for a larger HFPA contingent at his Beverly Hills mansion. (Pictured, above; Pia Zadora as Kady in Butterfly)

When that year’s nominations were announced (and with the film still awaiting a US release), there was Pia Zadora’s name shortlisted as The New Star of Tomorrow. She would then compete - and win - against fellow nominees Kathleen Turner (Body Heat), Howard E. Rollins Jr and Elizabeth McGovern (both for Ragtime), Rachel Ward (Sharkey’s Machine) and Craig Wasson (Four Friends). When presenter Timothy Hutton read her name, the room seemed to drain of air; there was almost total silence.

When the film was released six days later, and it became all too obvious that Zadora was perhaps the least likely to win an award for her onscreen presence, public and industry backlash became vitriolic. So stained by the rumours that the award had been bought and that the HFPA voting group were approachable, broadcasting partner CBS bailed on their ongoing screening contract; ABC and NBC networks also passed on the now floundering show (after 12 years in the broadcasting wilderness, it returned to network television on NBC in 1995). The Golden Raspberry Awards, aka The Razzies, redressed the balance somewhat, awarding Zadora the Worst Actress and Worst New Star honours.

Meshulam Riklis continued to accumulate wealth and blow it on Zadora’s acting projects. The same year as Butterfly, he produced Fake-Out (also for director Matt Cimber), a dire thriller not quite so awful as Butterfly but still unwatchable by any standard. In 1983, he bankrolled The Lonely Lady, a vulgar, trashy Z-grader in which Zadora (as a Hollywood screenwriter, no less; pictured, right) is raped by Ray Liotta…with a garden hose; it swept that year’s Razzie awards. Riklis bought his wife some studio time with Jermaine Jackson; together they recorded the duet When the Rain Begins to Fall, from her 1984 scifi-comedy romp, Voyage of The Rock Aliens). Riklis and Zadora would divorce in 1993; he left the film business, she retired from acting in 1999.

The late Israeli producer has always denied anything underhanded occurred between himself and the HFPA. “These rumors are ridiculous,” he insisted, when asked the time. “The by-laws say okay to a screening in the home. Other people take the judges out to fancy restaurants—what’s the big deal?” Perhaps; and, frankly, the HFPA have not done their credibility any favours with some left-field choices in the intervening years (let's say…Dudley Moore in ’85, for Mickey & Maude, over Ghostbusters’ Bill Murray and Beverly Hills Cop’s Eddie Murphy). There is no denying, however, that Riklis’ clandestine actions turned the name of his young wife into an industry punchline that lasts to this day. (Pictured, left; Riklis, right, with wife Tali Sinai and friend in 2011)

Saturday
Feb032018

THE WIDOWED WITCH TAKES TIGER TROPHY AT IFFR 2018

The 2018 Hivos Tiger trophy for Best Film at the 47th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has been awarded to Cai Chengjie’s The Widowed Witch. In a statement issued by the official Jury, Chengjie’s remarkably assured debut feature, “is a film of epic dimensions with a narrative that is greater than one person or moment. Its bold vision, created by a lyrical layering of cinematographic elements, makes [the] film stand out.”

Also singled out from the eight films in contention for the Tiger honour was Muayad Alayan’s The Reports on Sarah and Saleem. Screenwriter Rami Alayan earned a Special Jury Award for the personal and politically charged drama, the Jury declaring, “The screenplay intertwines the personal and the political and it manages to balance a complex plot with convincing characters.” An international co-production between Palestine, The Netherlands, Germany and Mexico, the film also won the coveted Hubert Bals Fund Audience Award, a €10,000 cash prize named after the late festival founder. (Pictured, below: IFFR 2018 winners include, from clockwise, The Widowed Witch, The Reports on Sarah and Saleem, Nina, Azougue Nazaré)

The Bright Future Award, a €10,000 endowment to a first time feature director, went to Tiago Melo’s mystical Brazilian drama Azougue Nazare, a work that employed a non-pro cast from the film's remote location. Malene Choi Jensen’s The Return was also singled out by the Jury for Special Mention for its depiction of, “a personal quest [that] gradually transforms into a reflection on loneliness, belonging, and existential homecoming.”

The most popular film of IFFR 2018 was Gustav Möller’s The Guilty (pictured, right), which took out two honours – the highly-prized Audience Award and the Youth Jury Award. The tense police procedural subverted plot and genre conventions to deliver a thriller which delivered, in the words of the Youth Jury members, “a master class in suspense.” From a program of 20 short films from 18 countries, Oscar Hudson’s Joy in People took out Voices Short Audience Award.

The other audience honour is the VPRO Big Screen Award, chosen by a jury of five audience members that ensures the winning film plays in Dutch theatres and is broadcast on national television. In 2018, that film was Nina, from Polish filmmaker Olga Chajdas.

The local filmmaker chosen by the Circle of Dutch Film Journalists as the festival’s Best Dutch, or Dutch co-produced work was Lucrecia Martel’s Zama. The body of international critics deciding upon this year’s Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique (FIPRESCI) honour chose Ere Gowda’s charming Kanarees language Balekempa. 

 

The NETPAC Award for Best Asian film having its World Premiere at IFFR 2018 was Shireen Seno’s Nervous Translation. The NETPAC Jury stated, “its singularly original representation of childhood beautifully captures a unique view full of contradictory interactions, introspection, social and political dissonance, and disquietude. With this film, the director has succeeded in creating an unforgettable cinematic universe.”

The Found Footage Award, an inaugural category introduced to honour those filmmakers employing archive or recycled footage to create fresh narratives, was awarded Slovenian Nika Autor’s mid-length feature, Newsreel 63: The Train of Shadows. 

Festival director Bero Beyer (pictured, right) thanked, “The crazy, daring, outspoken and warm people” of both IFFR and Rotterdam for ensuring the event reached new heights. Several aspects of past festivals were reworked and relaunched in 2018, most notably the Cinemart professional marketplace. The festival has one full day of screenings left before Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin closes out the 2018 program.

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