‘Titane’ Filmmaker Julia Ducournau on How This Was The Hardest Script She Has Ever Written

Despite the continuing challenges of the pandemic, it was a year of highlights from film festivals around the world.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentThanks to glamorous Paris-set shows like “Lupin” and “Emily in Paris” topping Netflix charts — and daring French female directors Julia Ducournau (“Titane”) and Audrey Diwan (“Happening”) winning top prizes at the Cannes and Venice film festivals — France drew more eyeballs worldwide in 2021 than it has in years.

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentThanks to glamorous Paris-set shows like “Lupin” and “Emily in Paris” topping Netflix charts — and daring French female directors Julia Ducournau (“Titane”) and Audrey Diwan (“Happening”) winning top prizes at the Cannes and Venice film festivals — France drew more eyeballs worldwide in 2021 than it has in years.

Clayton Davis The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences has announced the shortlists in 10 categories for the upcoming 94th Oscars ceremony.The shortlist voting concluded on Dec. 15, and the remaining ones will move on to the official phase one voting.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences today unveiled its shortlist of 15 films that will advance to the next stage of voting in the International Feature Film category at the Oscars. Notable among omissions is Julia Ducournau’s Titane, the entry from France which won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or — becoming only the second movie directed by a woman to scoop that prize.

William Shakespeare, the Bard himself, needs no introduction. Nor, arguably, does Joel Coen, who has been one of American cinema’s great voices for almost forty years with his brother Ethan.

(Warning: This article contains spoilers about the plot of “Titane.”)The idea for “Titane” came to director Julia Ducournau in a nightmare. She dreamed that she was giving birth to engine pieces, which led to the central premise of her bold thrilling new film about a woman named Alexia (newcomer Agathe Rousselle), who is indeed impregnated by an automobile.

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorFilmmaker Joel Coen wanted “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” his adaptation of the Shakespearean staple about the ambitious Scottish king, to be rooted in theatricality but to avoid looking like a filmed play. For his first solo movie as a director, he chose to shoot in the stark black and white of classic expressionist works.

Clayton Davis In Variety‘s Up Next, we asked four Oscar winners to pick the one person who represents the future of Hollywood.Pedro Almodóvar describes his scripts as making a dish. “They need a lot of cooking time in the oven,” he says.

The cast of The Tragedy of Macbeth is stepping out together!

EXCLUSIVE: The Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment and Janet Yang Productions today announced that they’re partnering for a new Short Film Challenge, which will provide production grants of $15,000 to four AAPI women or non-binary filmmakers.

EXCLUSIVE: Elie Grappe, the French writer-director whose feature directorial debut Olga has been selected as Switzerland’s entry for the Best International Feature Film Oscar, has signed with CAA for representation.

Jon Burlingame editorOscar winner Rachel Portman (“Emma”) served up a delightful score for “Julia,” the documentary about cooking personality Julia Child from “RBG” filmmakers Betsy West and Julie Cohen.Curiously, the English composer had never seen Child’s public TV series “The French Chef” and, although she loves to cook, does not own Child’s classic book “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”Portman, who recently received a lifetime achievement award from Germany’s SoundTrack Cologne, spoke

A version of this story about Julia Ducournau and “Titane” first appeared in the International issue of TheWrap’s awards magazine.Sexual congress with an automobile is merely the ignition switch of Julia Ducournau’s graphic, sensory “body horror” thriller, which scored the 38-year-old director an historic Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival this year.

Clayton Davis Films from Paul Thomas Anderson, Jane Campion, Joel Coen, Guillermo del Toro, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Denis Villeneuve are recipients of the 2021 AFI Awards.The honors give a nice boost for the films’ awards campaigns leading up to the holiday break, especially as ballots are in the hands of Critics Choice and SAG voters.

Mark and Dorothy Canton’s Atmosphere Entertainment has acquired the rights to Upper Cut: Highlights of My Hollywood Life, an internationally bestselling memoir by Carrie White, which it is developing for film.

Jon Burlingame editorCarter Burwell has scored 19 of the movies of Joel and Ethan Coen, including such classics as “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski” and “No Country for Old Men,” yet he’s never been nominated for a major industry award for any of that music.

Jennifer Yuma editorApple Original Films and A24 announced a special free screening event of “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” followed by a live Q&A with Joel Coen and Frances McDormand on Dec. 5 in IMAX.Shot in black-and-white, Coen’s take on the Scottish Play stars Denzel Washington as Lord Macbeth and McDormand as Lady Macbeth.