Italian director Gianfranco Rosi's
'Notturno' (Nocturne) has made the Oscar shortlist, for best
documentary, along with Laura Pausini's song for the latest
Sophia Loren film, 'La vita davanti a sé', (The Life Ahead), the
Academy said Tuesday evening.
The make-up and hair work for Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio also
made the list, as well as Italian expat in France Filippo
Meneghetti's debut Due (Two) which is on the best foreign film
shortlist.
Loren, 86, who was not nominated for her acclaimed performance
as an ex-prostitute who bonds with a migrant boy in her son
Edoardo Ponti's latest work, is however in the short documentary
shortlist for Ross Kauffman's study of her, What Would Sophia
Loren Do?.
The score for Ponti's The Life Ahead has also made the
shortlist, along with Pausini's song, 'Io sì' (Seen).
The nominations will be announced on March 15 and the Oscar
handed out on April 25, two months late due to the COVID
pandemic.
Rosi, 57, is an Italian-American documentary filmmaker.
His 2013 film Sacro GRA won the Golden Lion at the 70th Venice
Film Festival, while his 2016 film 'Fuocammare' (Fire at Sea)
won the Golden
Bear at the 66th Berlin Film Festival.
Rosi is the only documentary filmmaker to win two highest awards
at the three major European film festivals (Venice, Berlin, and
Cannes) and is the only director besides Michael Haneke, Ang
Lee, Ken Loach, and Jafar Panahi to do so in the 21st century.
Notturno, shot over the course of three years in Syria, Iraq,
Kurdistan, and Lebanon, looks at ordinary people in Middle
Eastern war zones as they struggle and hope for more peaceful
lives.
Rosi has said he had been "deeply shaken" by what he filmed for
Notturno on the borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria and
Lebanon.
He said he hoped the documentary would "open the eyes of people
who have been anesthetized to what they see on TV about the
effects of war".
The Asmara-born Roman director won Venice's top prize in 2013
with Sacro GRA, a tale of wacky lives on Rome's ring road.
He won the Golden Lion in Berlin in 2016 with Fuocoammare, a
migrant drama set on the stepping-stone Sicilian island of
Lampedusa.
Rosi was recently appointed a member of the Berlin Film
Festival.
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