How Oscar Nominated Directors Played With the Academy’s Favorite Genres

For the children of Lusia “Lucy” Harris, the woman at the center of The Queen of Basketball, the prospect of the upcoming Oscar ceremony brings a feeling of joy, along with a measure of sadness.

EXCLUSIVE:  WarnerMedia OneFifty has picked up this year’s Oscar-nominated live action short, The Dress from Polish filmmaker Tadeusz Lysiak.

2022 Oscars was officially released last week. And while the scope of awards season has changed pretty dramatically over the last few years, the talent and unique storytelling present in this year's pack of nominees is perhaps more impressive now than ever before. Leading the way for Oscar favorites is Netflix's which racked up12 total nominations including those in major categories like Best Picture, Best Director for Jane Campion, Best Actor for Benedict Cumberbatch, and supporting acting nods for Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

Deaf representation has taken a major step forward with two Oscar-nominated films this year — one a fictional story, the other entirely real.

Audible” have debuted a PSA in honor of Deaf History Month.“Audible” director Matthew Ogens and producer Geoff McLean have reteamed to produce a new public service announcement promoting Deaf History Month, which runs March 13 to April 15. The PSA features the documentary’s Amaree McKenstry-Hall, and deaf activist and model Nyle DiMarco, communicating through American Sign Language, explaining the documentary and Deaf History Month.“We are tough, we are strong, we are determined,” McKenstry-Hall signs in the PSA.DiMarco, who is a producer on “Audible,” adds, “There isn’t anything we can’t do, we will succeed.” “Audible” focuses on teenagers at Maryland School for the Deaf, specifically following the life of McKenstry-Hall, then a senior at the school.

When The Worst Person in the World premiered in competition in Cannes this year there was the sense of an arrival, notably in the case of its leading lady, Renate Reinsve, who won the festival’s award for best actress. In actual fact, the film was closer to a destination, being the third part of an unofficial triptych begun by Norwegian director Joachim Trier with his 2006 feature debut Reprise, about two young bohemian writers living in Oslo. He followed it in 2011 with Oslo, August 31st, in which Reprise’s star, Anders Danielsen Lie, by day a successful medical doctor, played a melancholic drug addict and Reinsve made her acting debut with just one line of dialogue (“Let’s go to the party!”).

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentThe upcoming Los Angeles-Italia Film Fashion and Art Festival will be honoring Italian directors Paolo Sorrentino (“The Hand of God”) and Enrico Casarosa (“Luca”) as well as costume-designer Massimo Cantini Parrini (“Cyrano”) all of whom have scored nominations for the upcoming Academy Awards. The 17th edition of the pre-Oscars event will be held March 20-26 at Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theatre and also online.This year’s opening ceremony will be hosted by veteran Italian-American actor Robert Davi, who is also this year’s president of the event. Sofia Milos (“CSI: Miami”) and Hollywood acting coach Bernard Hiller will co-host.Consul General of Italy Silvia Chiave and Italian Institute of Culture chief Emanuele Amendola will also be introducing honorees both at the Chinese Theatre and during a separate March 25 event being held at the Italian Institute of Culture.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorEver since Searchlight Pictures released stills of Jessica Chastain in “The Eyes of Tammy Faye,” audiences were captivated by her transformation, and now, the hair and makeup team, along with Chastain, are all in the running for Oscar. The goal of makeup department head Linda Dowds, hair department head Stephanie Ingram and special makeup effects artist Justin Raleigh was not to make a caricature of the famous televangelist but create a real person.Raleigh’s process began with 2D conceptual designs combining the real Tammy Faye Bakker with Chastain to figure out the elements that had to be altered with prosthetics.

Clayton Davis With Oscar voting set to begin on March 17, four new actors will be entering the history books with “Academy Award winner” next to their name. The honor of an Oscar nomination is one of the highest a person can receive in Hollywood.

, Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Visual Effects. Starring Timothée Chalamet, Oscar Isaac and Zendaya, this universe is one you surely want to enter. Watch Now is based off of Frank Herbert's classic science fiction saga of the same name, and follows Paul Atreides, a nobleman, who lives in the distant future in an intergalactic feudal society ruled by one all-powerful emperor. Paul is forced to relocate with his parents to the desert planet Arrakis — the most dangerous planet in the universe, better known as Dune.

Jon Burlingame editorComposer Germaine Franco’s Oscar nomination for “Encanto” is a landmark moment in film music:– She is the first Latina to be nominated in that category;– She is only the sixth woman ever to be nominated for an original score;– And she is the first woman to score a Disney film.But ask any of her colleagues in the profession and they’ll tell you something else: that it’s a triumph for a musically talented, genuinely kind person who has worked hard her entire life, dating back decades to her childhood in El Paso, Texas, just across the border from where her grandparents were born in Chihuahua and Durango, Mexico.Franco landed the “Encanto” assignment in part because she had firmly established the Mexican backdrop of Disney’s 2017 film “Coco” via her orchestrations and original songs. Says Lin-Manuel Miranda, who is also nominated as songwriter for “Encanto”: “I admired her work on ‘Coco’ and it was really important to me that we have a Latino music team.

Marc Malkin Senior Film Awards, Events & Lifestyle Editor“Power of the Dog” star Jesse Plemons is speaking out about Sam Elliott’s recent rant against Jane Campion’s award-winning Netflix film.“I laughed when I heard. I don’t know why,” Plemons told me at premiere of his new Charlie McDowell-directed thriller “Windfall” on Friday night at the London West Hollywood hotel. ”I haven’t listened to it so I’ve heard it from what people have told me.

Stuart Miller In the aftermath of #OscarSoWhite, there has been a shift, with actors of color including Viola Davis, Daniel Kaluuya, Mahershali Ali and Steven Yuen earning nominations. But the parts these actors inhabited were written specifically for a Black or, in Yuen’s case, a Korean actor.It was only last year when Riz Amed, the British son of Pakistani immigrants, was nominated of “Sound of Metal,” that the Oscars hinted at a newer trend in diversity in casting.“Hollywood is finally catching up and we’re able to represent the world as it really is,” says “West Side Story” casting director Cindy Tolan, adding that studios are “following the dollar.”“If you’re more reflective of life and of the audience, then more people will be interested in your movie or TV show,” says “Macbeth” casting director Ellen Chenoweth.

At the Oscar Luncheon earlier this week, a young man sporting a gray suit and a dazzling smile rubbed shoulders with the likes of Will Smith, Denzel Washington, Jessica Chastain and Kristen Stewart. Unlike those luminaries, Amaree McKenstry-Hall isn’t an actor, but he is a star — of an Oscar-nominated film. A nonfiction one.

Composer Alberto Iglesias returns to the Oscars for a fourth time and his fourth Original Score nomination with Parallel Mothers. 

Diane Warren is in an elite club. Her 13th Oscar nomination in the Best Original Song category puts her among some of the greatest songwriters of all time.

Kodi Smit-McPhee walks the carpet while attending an event at the 2022 Santa Barbara International Film Festival on Thursday (March 3) in Santa Barbara, Calif.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorAs Disney’s “Encanto” continues to break music chart records, a much more personal moment stands out to composer Germaine Franco. It’s a viral moment, captured on social media, of a little boy who lights up at realizing that he looks just like the young character Antonio. “It’s so beautiful because he sees himself on screen,” she tells Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast.“Encanto” features eight original songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda, while Franco’s score cuts in and out of the songs, evoking a sense of magical realism.