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THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW TO HOST AWARDS GALA TUESEDAY, JANUARY 7, 2025 IN NEW YORK CITY

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New York, NY (April 16, 2024)  – The National Board of Review announced today that they will host their annual Awards Gala on Tuesday, January 7, 2025, in New York City.

The National Board of Review’s awards celebrate excellence in filmmaking with categories that include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Original and Adapted Screenplay, Best International Film, Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Performance, Directorial Debut, Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography and Stunt Artistry. Additionally, they award signature honors such as the NBR Icon Award, NBR Freedom of Expression, and the William K. Everson Award for Film History.

Additional details about the event will be announced at a later date.

ABOUT THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW
Since 1909, the National Board of Review has dedicated its efforts to the support of cinema as both art and entertainment. Each year, this select group of film enthusiasts, filmmakers, professionals and academics participates in illuminating discussions with directors, actors, producers and screenwriters before announcing their selections for the best work of the year. Since first citing year-end cinematic achievements in 1929, NBR has recognized a vast selection of outstanding studio, independent, foreign-language, animated and documentary films, often propelling recipients such as Peter Farrelly’s Green Book and George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road into the larger awards conversation. In addition, one of the organization’s core values is identifying new talent and nurturing young filmmakers by awarding promising talent with Directorial Debut and Breakthrough Performance awards as well as grants to rising film students. With its continued efforts to assist up-and-coming artists in completing and presenting their work, NBR honors its commitment to not just identifying the best that current cinema has to offer, but also ensuring the quality of films for future generations to come.

Join the conversation @NBRfilm

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Press Contacts:
Shawn Purdy / Alicia Mohr / Lindsey Brown – SLATE PR
shawn@slate-pr.com / aliciam@slate-pr.com / lindsey@slate-pr.com

Q&A with Bertrand Bonello

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The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of The Beast.

I heard that your first idea, or one of the first images that you had, was the green screen prologue. Why was that the right way to start the film?
Bertrand Bonello: It’s the first thing I wrote. Because for everyone, or for every audience, green screen is related to the idea of virtuality. And so at the beginning, the audience knows that not everything would be real. There would be some virtuality in the film. If you enter directly into the 1910 part, for example, it looks like a period film. If you have the green screen first, you know it’s going to be a little more twisted. The second reason is whatever the story is, you have Léa Seydoux like for three minutes alone in this green ocean, and it’s a way to say, “my subject is her,” you know, besides the story. And also, as in this scene, you have an element of me as the director talking and saying, “okay, are you ready?”
You are really entering the subject and when you enter the scene after that, the long, long scene in the party in 1910, you enter it loaded with something.

it’s more and more difficult for me to find films that bring me a cinematic experience

Even though you’re changing formats and you’re shooting different aspect ratios, you managed to keep it so cohesive as a whole. How did you accomplish this?
BB: Well, the decision was to say, “okay, the present of the film is 2044, and it’s going to be a square ratio, 1.33, because it’s meant to take away space, in a way, you know. And to make it so that the characters are a little more trapped. Then when you go back to the past, you open it up. Like if the past was a refuge or a movie, you know. So you go back to 1.85. And inside that, the 1910 part is shot in 35mm, because we needed this kind of sensual texture. And 2014 and 2044, the digital and the sharpness and coldness of digital were perfect.

Did you sense that there was a difference, because of those different camera techniques, when shooting those scenes with the actors?
BB: Well, I really started my career on film, you know. So when I switched to digital with Nocturama, I didn’t change my way of shooting. I still do like three or four takes, not more than that. It’s not like I let the camera run. And so for me it doesn’t change a lot. Thing is, for the crew, I realized that when it’s 35mm, everyone is a little more concentrated. When you say, “I’m ready,” everyone’s ready. You know, it’s not like you do one shot and afterward you say, “ah, I’m going to add a mic,” or stuff like that. They don’t do that. So, and even for the actors, it’s good for concentration because everyone knows it costs money.

How much did you talk to your actors about how you were going to shoot it? How much do you discuss things like production or themes with them beforehand?
BB: You cannot imagine a bigger difference in approach between two actors than the one between George and Léa. George, for example, I mean he is someone that really needs and wants a lot of explanations and prep and stuff like that. So like, I don’t know, two months before the shoot, we had huge exchanges of emails and he wanted to be sure of everything. Like if I enter the room at that moment… do I do it this way or that way? In this line I have, does this word mean that or that? Do you have only one meaning or underneath meaning? You know, he wants everything. Then he disappears and works on his own. And Léa, to the contrary, she doesn’t want to know anything. Well, she’s, I think she’s a little scared of intellectualization, you know. She likes to arrive on the set and, you know, sometimes she doesn’t know even what we’re going to shoot. So I just explain to her the heart of the scene, and just before I say action, I say like three or four words, you know, just to put her in the mood. And usually it works. She likes to discover the scene while she’s acting. And when it doesn’t work, she comes to me and says, “Okay, anyway, Gabrielle, she’s your character. You know her much better than I do. Just do the scene for me and I will imitate you.” So that’s what I do.

I’m fascinated about the way that you use melodrama in a world that you’re creating that’s emotionless. Is it a fear of yours that maybe cinema also is becoming a little emotionless?
BB: Yes, more and more. I’m going to talk a bit more about French cinema, but more and more people are obsessed with the subject of films, much more than the films. And I don’t really care about the subject of films. I’m interested in movie experiences, you know? And about who is doing the film, much more than what the film is, you know? Do I have, like, an experience as a spectator? Is it a real story? So, it’s a big movement, this, this this way. That just, that scares me, but it’s more and more difficult for me to find films that bring me a cinematic experience.

Q&A with Thea Sharrock and Anjana Vasan

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The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Wicked Little Letters.

Thea, I’d love to start by hearing about your first exposure to the script.
Thea Sharrock: I was sent the script by Studio Canal, and they said look, we have a new spec script by a guy who’s never written a screenplay before, and we think it’s great. And I thought, oh that’s interesting. Then they added, by the way, Olivia Colman is playing the lead, would you like to read it? And I was like, um, yeah, I’ll be reading that one. And they needed this process to happen in a certain way, quickly, due to Olivia’s availability. They didn’t tell me it was a comedy, they didn’t tell me it was based on a true story, they didn’t tell me all the kind of usual stuff that you would pump into a director beforehand. Basically, I went in blind and I read it and it was amazing because I could hear Olivia’s voice in my ear and in my head.  It made a huge difference because Edith is such a complicated character. Already having Olivia in my mind made the first read not only much clearer but it also gave me the freedom to laugh out loud. It’s not very often that you get a script that makes you laugh out loud on the first reading. I just knew. I thought the writing was wonderful, and I knew it was a great script for actors. What I love most in my job is working with really great actors. This was going to be a great vehicle for actors. So that’s what drew me to it.

This was going to be a great vehicle for actors

And Anjana, can you tell us how you came to the role of Gladys?
Anjana Vasan: My agent sent me the script and said Thea Sharrock wants to meet you, have a read, and Olivia Colman’s attached and before she could finish saying Olivia Colman I went, yes! And she went, no, no, no, you read the script, I’m going to set a meeting with Thea. I was like yes, of course of course, and I did all those things. Thea and I met and we really got on and we had sort of the same idea, the same approach, it was a good vibe. We were on the same page. And before I knew it, I was filming the movie. It all felt quite organic and easy. And usually it isn’t; usually you send a tape and you never hear back. Maybe you find out you’re not in the movie when they announce the cast or you see the movie. But this felt like a genuine conversation and a collaboration. And Thea was assembling the most like wonderful group of actors.

You mentioned that you didn’t know it was a true story when you got the script. How did that aspect come into play?
TS: Anjana, it was one of the first things we talked about, wasn’t it? Because Gladys was a real woman. And we talked immediately about how that comes with a level of responsibility. It’s a responsibility when you’re telling someone else’s story, but at the same time, we of course also wanted our own free range, so we needed to strike a balance. And the story is absolutely bonkers. The fact that it’s real, it still makes me laugh. It makes me laugh at British people because I think we’re mental. For example, how about if I told you that the whole invisible ink thing was true? And so was somebody hiding in a post box. Also true. I’d love to say that we came up with those embellishments, but they were already there. This is a story that was waiting to happen. The other thing I’d like to add is that Anjana was wearing a full yellow jumpsuit, a bodysuit, when we met. And when I say yellow, I’m talking like canary yellow.  So if you think I wasn’t going to cast her on the first meeting, you don’t know me well enough!

AV: Yeah, I didn’t do method dressing, clearly. I didn’t think about that. I should have dressed up more like what Gladys would have worn!

TS: If you’d actually shown up to a coffee shop in that…

AV: You know, what I really loved about Jonny Sweet’s script was that, yes, it was based in history, but it felt like it had one foot in the 1920s and one foot now. Something about the way the dialogue worked; it felt modern. I think I love that sort of element of irreverence within the history. I think we’re used to seeing very quaint period pieces and I think this story sets it up as if it is that, but then it completely subverts expectations and feels quite fresh.

How did you approach the visual nature of the film, keeping in mind the time period? 
TS: For me, aesthetically, two things are really important. One is the use of color. The other thing, which is combined within that, is how you work together with your DP, your production designer, your costume designer, and your hair and makeup designers. If we all work very closely together, and everybody understands what it is that I’m looking for, you are more than the sum of your parts. We build the aesthetic together. I think that you have to be even more careful of that when you do a period piece. Because we’re not living a hundred years ago—we’re living right now. That imagination that you need to make somewhere look and feel like it’s a hundred years ago, you’ve got to be coming from the same place and understand those aspects in the storytelling. I knew, for example, that I wanted to keep away from red in the palette as much as possible, so that every time you saw the letterbox, it would really pop. Those kinds of things are subtle, but they mean a lot to me. Some people notice them, lots of people don’t, and that’s totally fine, but it’s something that hopefully adds to your enjoyment of the film.

The character arc of Gladys is terrific. I felt completely different about her from the beginning to the middle to the end.
AV: A lot of that is in the script and it makes it easy when it’s charted properly, and the production details help. Thea and I talked about this. At the beginning you see someone who’s sitting up a bit too straight, a bit too buttoned up. It’s almost like she’s wanting to demonstrate that she can do the job. We also wanted her hat to be slightly too big, because it’s the first woman police officer in Sussex and they wouldn’t have had a perfect fit. She’s trying to fit into a place that isn’t quite accepting. And she’s trying to fit into the uniform. And then you realize that in some ways it’s quite restricting on her because the system and the men around her aren’t letting her do her job and follow her instincts. So actually you see a different side to her when she isn’t in uniform and she’s a bit freer. There’s more of a sparkle to her, I think, when she isn’t in the uniform and you see her brain ticking away. I wanted to chart the physical journey of what that might have been like. By the end, you see someone who is a different person than at the beginning. There’s a bit more to her than meets the eye.

Absolutely. And one of the things that makes this so effective are all the tone changes throughout the film. How did you make the comedy and drama work so cohesively?
AV: That’s probably the hardest thing, getting the tone right.

TS: It is, but the truth is that when you shoot something you break it down, right? You break it down scene by scene, and moment to moment within that. We would always know because we’d rehearsed it, we talked it through. If it was a scene with Anjana, we would have talked beforehand about what we wanted to achieve for the character in that scene. We’d discuss it at length, before shooting, right before shooting, and during shooting. You always know going in. Okay, this is the one where we reveal that her dad is everything to her. For Gladys, so much of her past is an obvious given even though nobody else ever talks to her about it. We were really aware of that going in. I would say for me, the shooting of it on set was never a problem because we always knew what the aim was.

What was more difficult, a much bigger challenge for me, is that you have to keep the whole film in your head all the time. The work that you do in prep is absolutely crucial in that you feel confident that you have a good hold, as much as you possibly can, on the thing as a whole. You need to know when you’re going to have your poignant, dramatic moments and when you’re going to have your laugh-out-loud moments. And then you shoot it with that plan as much in place as possible. Where it gets crazy is in the edit. Sometimes, lots of that works out, and sometimes, lots of it just doesn’t. There are laughs that you didn’t realize were going to be there, and there were laughs that you were sure were going to be there, but they aren’t!  And something you leave room for, something you hope for, is that actors will always bring something extra. However hard you’ve tried to anticipate everything, good actors will always bring something extra. Finding those moments in the edit is amazing. There’s nothing more exciting than an editor saying to you, I’ve recut that scene. Have a look at this. It can be so different from one cut to the next, even with a very short scene, something that’s 45 seconds. You use different cuts, different angles, and you can go from a comedy to a drama. That’s the power of it. And so, tonally, it was really in the edit that I had to keep the ship steered in the right way. And even then, it’s very easy to lose your way. The really scary part is when you start to let other people come in and watch it. If you have a trusted producer, you let them come in, and that’s when you really start to learn—through an audience, of course. But yes, without question, the challenge of maintaining the right tone for this film was the biggest and most important part of the job.

Q&A with Denis Villeneuve

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The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Dune: Part Two

Just as in the last film, this one starts with an incredible burst of sound, accompanied by some text, that really grabs the audience and lets them know they are in for an incredible experience. Can you talk about that decision?
Denis Villeneuve: When making movies, you try to plan as much as possible in the screenwriting. Even so, there are elements that come to life as you’re shooting. And similarly, in post-production, sometimes unplanned things happen, too. As we were developing various languages for the first one, Hans Zimmer started to do some experiments. Hans had permission to go very close to sound design… as close as he dared! Let’s just say it was a deal with the sound design team. He sometimes went a bit too far [laughing].

And, and as part of that process he developed a language that I absolutely was mesmerized by, but that wasn’t really used in the film. And I came up with the idea to open the film with that kind of… it’s a kind language that was developed from Sardaukar priests. I thought it would be interesting to use it as a kind of prophet, as a way to express some thought right at the beginning of the film… And it was also a nice way to say to everybody in the audience, “shut up!” But jokes aside, it was also a great way to take control over the movie before anything else, before the studio credits, even, which I love. And, for those who are familiar with the books, each chapter always start with a quote or an extract of the princess Irulan’s journal. So I thought it would be an elegant way to start the movie as well.

Casting is one of the most delicate moments of the filmmaking process for me

Let’s talk a little bit about the process of adaptation. You’ve done several adaptations now, and they are just incredible, between Dune, Arrival, and also Blade Runner 2049, in its own way. You make it look easy… and it’s not easy, because people haven’t touched this film [Dune] for decades. You were quoted as saying that when you adapt, you kill. Which is interesting to me, because when I watch your films, I feel like something other than killing is happening. It’s almost more like a reduction, as though you’re bringing the story to its essence. 
DV: But the thing is that when I say that I “kill,” it’s just that it is a violent, transformative process to go from the book – which people love, they are like poems. The books put so much of their strength into the description of the cultures and the rituals and, and of course I could only bring a little bit of it onscreen. So right from the start, I had to make some very bold choices.

One of them was to make this adaptation a Bene Gesserit adaptation. Of course, we looked at the Spacing Guild, the people that make space travel possible. There’s the Mentats, the human computers that are guiding the different families. Both of those groups are almost entirely put aside in my adaptation. I focused exclusively on the Bene Gesserit. It was a way to try to focus on the main theme that was interesting me in the book, which was the use of religion as a political tool.

I think the female characters in this film are just… all of them are impossible to take your eyes off of. They’re just so fascinating. Rebecca Ferguson in general is hard not to watch. She’s just an amazing actress. Can you talk about casting them, and about the decision to bring Chani to the forefront?
DV: Casting is one of the most delicate moments of the filmmaking process for me. It’s a very delicate moment, and you cannot make a mistake with casting… I mean, I’m stating the obvious, but if you get it wrong it can have a catastrophic impact. So I made sure to take my time before shooting part one. First of all, I made all of the casting decisions around Timothée Chalamet. I cast with a hundred percent certainty that he would be perfect for the part of Paul. And then I constructed all of the family, everybody, around him. And Rebecca is one of the first ones that came on board quite quickly, for many reasons.

First of all, I love actors that can make you believe in other worlds, and take you with them into those worlds a bit, like Amy Adams did in Arrival. They can make us believe in aliens, you know? Some actors can bring you into the unknown, and Rebecca is one of them, and she can absolutely do anything in front of the camera. I mean, it’s quite impressive how she was on the set. She’s a force. I can always rely on Rebecca when I need to go somewhere in the story.

And in the book, her character kind of goes into the shadows of Paul. And this time, in the adaptation, I wanted to keep her up front because she’s the most… for me Lady Jessica is one of the most fascinating characters. She’s the main architect of the entire story. And I always thought it’s sort of strange that in the book she disappears, so I wanted to work more with Rebecca. I just love working with her.

I have to ask you about the incredible array and variety of headgear in the film. It’s just unbelievable. You start looking forward to what’s happening next with Bene Gesserit costumes, for example, Florence Pugh’s character. There is an endless variety of interesting face masks! Could you take us inside that process, of deciding to cover up some of the world’s best actors, and what they thought about that?  
DV: Some of the headgear was born in the storyboards. There are some ideas that start there, and other ideas that start as I’m working with Jacqueline [West]. Jacqueline is a fantastic costume designer that is well known for her more historical work. And I wanted a costume designer that would bring some kind of historical consideration to the costuming. I didn’t want “fantasy” costume that would look like it was out of a “fantasy” movie. Dune, when you read the novel, feels like it was written by a historian. That he went into the future and came back with a time machine and filled the book with that kind of historical quality, that kind of gravitas, that kind of seriousness, and so I wanted the costume design to be similarly grounded. I wanted it to have deep roots, and to feel the history of each culture. And Jacqui was absolutely fantastic at doing this. And, yes, we tried to have fun with some of them.

Q&A with Carla Gutierrez

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The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of Frida.

You’ve worked on Biopics before: for example, you edited RBG. How was making Frida different from those other experiences, apart from the fact that you directed?
Carla Gutierrez: I came to it with a personal connection. I mean, I think a lot of people have a personal connection to Frida’s art. But we also felt the responsibility of finding a way for her voice to really carry the story. So, yes, it is all archival… but we really wanted to make it feel as present as possible. And that was both a kind of exercise, and a challenge, and a beautiful process of digging into Frida’s own words and learning that she could actually tell her own story. That was really special.

And, you know, sometimes it was difficult, and a lot of times it was really beautiful and exciting when we discovered things. So I think that was a little bit different from RBG. In this case, it was Frida herself that really, you know, came alive.

your personal connection or attraction to a story is just the beginning

Let’s talk about the challenges of that approach, of letting Frida tell her own story. Because it’s one thing to have that idea, but I’m sure there must have been some points in the filmmaking process where you kind of felt that you were in a corner, creatively. How did you solve those problems while still keeping true to your original vision?

CG: Yes, there were challenges, but also, I think it was a gift. We didn’t have an opportunity to sit in front of her and ask her to tell us about her life! And so we relied on her writings. And they came from letters that she sent to loved ones and her diary. Her writings and her words lived very much in this world of emotions. So she wasn’t describing exactly what was happening in her life— and it was sometimes a bit of a challenge to make those connections, but at the same time, what a gift, right? And we kind of learned to be guided by that. To lean into just her emotions, and that was the exciting part of it. You actually get to hear the texture of her personality, the texture of her life, the feelings of those moments in her life… and I think that is what is unique that our film offers, to present that side of her to viewers, to let the audience really hear her heart and not necessarily hear people talking about her from the distance of history and the academic distance of understanding art.

One of the things that I noticed is how vocal she is about pushing against the patriarchy, pushing against the idea of a “man’s world.” Did this aspect of her story resonate with you in particular, or was it just one aspect of many that you found compelling?
CG: Besides a film that was done, I believe, in 1968 by a Mexican woman, I’m the first Latina to make a film about Frida. And I think that gave me a particular closeness to the subject matter. I think the understanding of growing up as a woman in this culture gave me a unique window into really capturing that experience in this film.

I always say that your personal connection or attraction to a story is just the beginning. Then you really have to do the homework and do the research, right? Because there’s still a distance that you have to go. You know, I did not grow up in Mexico. I grew up in Peru. I also have this sense of history, right?

We did a lot of research to be able to find every writing that there is on Frida that has been published or made public out there. And her writings are all over the place: you cannot find all her writings in one publication. So we had to follow tracks and different collections to be able to like get close to her real voice. And of course there was the cultural knowledge that I brought in from the very beginning. And I think my experience of the gender dynamics in Latin America — that I brought in from the beginning — was valuable. But there was a lot of work that we also needed to do to understand the context and understand the woman.