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THE NATIONAL BOARD OF REVIEW TO ANNOUNCE HONOREES TUESDAY, JANUARY 26TH

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New York, NY (September 9, 2020) – The National Board of Review announced today that it will reveal its 2020 honorees on Tuesday, January 26, 2021. Films will be eligible if screened by the NBR and released either theatrically or digitally on or before February 28, 2021. If a movie’s release is digital, it must have had a theatrical release planned prior to the onset of COVID-19. The NBR will announce its plans for their celebration at a later date.

The National Board of Review’s awards celebrate excellence in filmmaking with categories that include Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress, Best Original and Adapted Screenplay, Best Foreign Language Film, Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary, Breakthrough Performance, and Directorial Debut as well as signature honors such as the Spotlight Award, Freedom of Expression, the William K. Everson Film History Award and the NBR Icon Award.

“This moment in time has only further proven the importance of cinema. A well-told story has unmatched power to bring us all together, no matter how physically far we are from one another,” said Annie Schulhof, President of the National Board of Review. “We look forward to honoring the best films and performances of 2020, a highly unusual year that is nevertheless poised to provide unique and outstanding achievements in cinema.”

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 of varying ages and backgrounds watches over 250 films and 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 Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, Peter Farrelly’s Green Book and George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road into the larger awards conversation. NBR also stands out as the only film organization that bestows a film history award in honor of former member and film historian William K. Everson. 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 Actor’ awards as well as grants to rising film students and by facilitating community outreach through the support of organizations such as The Ghetto Film School, Reel Works Teen Filmmaking, and Educational Video Center. 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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Q&A with Amanda McBaine and Jesse Moss

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

This film feels very “of the moment.” Can you walk us through when you first learned of Boys State?

Jesse Moss: When we first started the film three years ago, we didn’t know what the moment would be when the film came out. It’s always a question you have. I hope it’s a good moment. I think the questions we’re trying to address in the film about political polarization and how young people are negotiating this current political moment are enduring questions. We were motivated to start the project after the election of 2016 and really wrestling with that notion of political division and how intractable this divide seems to be in our politics, our culture, and in our country. I think the spark was when we read about the Texas Boys State program in the Washington Post in the fall of 2017. We didn’t go through the program so we didn’t know much about it, but when we learned that boys in Texas had voted to secede from the union, that got our attention. It was a playful gesture, but also telling in a way. And we were struck by how unusual the space they created was— a space where they’d bring young people together who have different politics and then try to talk to each other. We liked the idea that this was actually happening and we wanted to further explore that space.

When was it clear that there was enough here to make a compelling feature?

Amanda McBaine: I love the word clarity; it’s not something you really have until you premiere your film and you hope people respond. We were intrigued by that article Jesse mentioned and it was sort of funny and profound at the same time. It has all of these things that you look for. Then we put the article on the table for a while and forgot about it, but it kept coming back and I think that at some point we realized there was something there. It wasn’t clear, but I thought it would be extraordinary not only as a place to explore ideas of democracy and hyper-polarization, but also questions about masculinity. I think that then you wonder if the organization would also think it would be interesting to have a documentary made about them. We called them up, totally expecting them not to be game, but to their credit we started a long conversation and I think even in that conversation I started to recognize there was something there. I think that was my first inkling that there might be more depth to this than I thought even after initially reading the article.

JM: We actually didn’t know what the experiment we were walking into was going to be like, and to your question, embarking on an unscripted film like this is there was a “plan A” and there was the abyss, and there was nothing in between! I guess it’s a high-stakes enterprise and I think that’s where the best storytelling and the biggest surprises happen. That’s what we love about the form; we don’t know where it will take us. I think we were both surprised beyond anything we could’ve written when we started the project.

Who we elect is as important as how we elect

One of the things I love about this film is the way it opens. It’s this extremely intellectual classroom setting, and such a surprise for the audience. It really signals that this is not the real-world politics style of Texas, you really have to sit up and pay attention. Was this always the focal opening point of the film?

AM: We love that scene and I think at some point during the edit, it was further into the film. I wasn’t in the room when that scene was shot, but I remember watching that in the dailies and feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. Partly because my experience of that first couple hours of Boys State was kind of awful, actually, because it’s the moment where all of the counselors are downloading a ton of information to the kids attending and so you have PowerPoint presentations and I thought, we’re in trouble. If that’s what this week is about, we are never going to walk away with a film. But then they give the program over to the boys and you see what happens. Then I heard that Lucas [the counselor] during the week was a very smart guy and had been through the program and also had these interesting takes on how he feels American politics are existing today. So for him, it’s really important that the kids start the week this way with this understanding that not only who we elect matters, but also how we elect matters. That kind of frame for him as a counselor then reframed how I watched the dailies going forward.

JM: And for that reason it’s really important for the audience to be framed. But hopefully not in too heavy-handed a way. This is contest of ideas and ideologies, that there is a reflection of a bigger world that hopefully we should bring to this story. It’s a very hermetic world; you can dismiss it as a summer camp or an inconsequential gathering of teenage boys in Texas, but I think that scene has a lot on its mind. You want to signal that to the audience but find a way that feels organic to the story you’re telling. The George Washington quote is a nod in that direction, and that classroom scene frames the stakes that elections really do matter, and who we elect is as important as how we elect. Then we can get it out of the way and into the maelstrom.

What about Girls State? Have they thought about combining these two events?

AM: We definitely want to make Girls State once the programs come back in real life, hopefully next summer. Whether or not they will join the programs in Texas is hard to say, but I feel like that has to be coming.

JM: We’d like to see that and Steven Garza would like to see that. He says in the film “What about People’s State?”. It seems sort of obvious that at this point in time, they should bring the programs together. They are trying to bring it into the Twenty-First Century by ensuring that there are different voices that reflect Texas, and they actually said to us that if a girl applied to Boys State and she were qualified, they’d let her in. And I think that would be a film unto itself, but I do think things are moving in that direction.

Q&A with Sam Feder and Amy Scholder

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

How did you shape the story of the documentary?

Sam Feder: It’s such a dance, when telling any story. Early on I knew that I was very passionate about two things: I wanted to get across the point that trans people have always been here (we’re not brand new!), and also that “visibility” was not going to be the goal of the film. And so, the question became, how do you tell a history of an evolution of representation that is sort of very cut and dry (you know, you just show the images of how things were, and how they progressed to where they are now, and you talk about them)? It was really important to me to have a higher level of nuance in the conversation. So on one hand, the film is about trans representation, but it’s also about historical erasure. It’s about racism and transphobia and transmisogyny and it’s about so many other things than just what we’re seeing. So even though I knew the message I wanted to get across, figuring out how to get there took years of thought and discussion.

Amy Scholder: I entered the project when Sam was doing research, and when he was really forming the idea of how and what to make this film about. I had seen Sam’s previous film, Kate Bornstein is a Queer & Pleasant Danger, and I loved it. I in my past life I’ve been a book publisher and have a long relationship with Kate Borenstein and with LGBTQ storytellers, so when I heard about this project I could see how important it was to tell this history and to tell it now, as our world was changing, but not fast enough and not necessarily in the ways that we wanted to see it change. There was a backlash developing against change. So, Sam and I joined forces and one of the things I loved in our process early on was talking about how to make a film that centered trans stories, histories, and voices, while also putting trans people behind the camera. We started to imagine how we would produce this film together, and it was really important to us that we create a production model that felt true to the kinds of models that we wanted to see in the future, and felt true to this story. And that meant developing a production model that prioritized hiring trans people. We only interviewed trans people in front of the camera, but we also prioritized hiring trans people behind the camera. And when we couldn’t find a trans person to fit the job, we were committed to a fellowship program— we had budget line items to pay reasonable day rates to all of our trans crew, and also a small stipend for a fellowship program so that we could help to bring new trans storytellers into the industry. That was a challenging model, certainly, but by sticking to our ideals I think we achieved a level of intimacy that not only enabled this film to speak to so many people, but also wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

I just thought that was a beautiful metaphor to describe what we were trying to do with this film

Can you discuss how you designed the look of the interviews?

SF: We spent a lot of time thinking about the look of the interviews, and planning them, and we had a team that helped us execute the vision. As with any decision when you’re making a film, there were a lot of factors that played into it. We knew the film was going to include a lot of archival imagery. So it would cover a wide range emotionally, and also just the look of the footage was going to change so much: one of our earliest clips is from 1901, and we have one from 2018. So we are going from black and white celluloid to full-color HD, and we were going between lots of different aspect ratios. So I knew there was going to be a lot of visual information the viewer was going to be taking in. That really leant itself to thinking about how we could make the interviews, which were going to be so idea-heavy, also be something of a visual resting place so that we’re not looking behind the subject to see what’s on their kitchen counter, or to see what kind of plant they have, but instead we’re really focused on them and the ideas they have. And we also thought that choosing the layers of white texture, and using a shallow depth of field, would allow us to really foreground the speaker. And my director of photography, Ava Benjamin Shorr, when she and I first met, she was like, “what do you think about shooting in anamorphic?” And my response was basically, “why are you even asking? I don’t know.” And she asked me to think about how on the one hand we had all this variable archival— so it will hold all that range, if we shot anamorphic. But also, anamorphic, that aspect ratio is really how big, epic Hollywood stories have always been told. And I just thought that was a beautiful metaphor to describe what we were trying to do with this film.

Recently, a prominent celebrity announced on social media that she was going to play a trans man. The announcement was pretty egregiously done. And not long after that, she apologized, rescinded the role, and Disclosure came up in the aftermath. Can you talk about the impact the film had in that?

SF: I think it all happened really quickly: maybe 24 hours or 48 hours elapsed between the announcement and the apology. And we started getting all of these emails saying, “congratulations,” and “good job!” And I don’t know what we really did, you know? I think having something in the world to point to made the turn around really quick. I think for people like Nick Adams and Alex Schmider (who work at GLAAD), it was helpful to have the film to reference when they were contacting the person’s reps. They were able to reference something specifically, which really sped up the education process, and helped them explain what the objection was. I think that window was really shortened because of Disclosure. And so many people who went on social media were able to have the film as a reference. And so that’s really exciting. And we know people have been doing this work for so many years. So it’s just about timing… people have been pushing back for so many years. Not only the folks at GLAAD, but also other activists like Jen Richards and of course Laverne. So I think Disclosure takes a lot of these ideas that have been part of the discourse, puts them in context in an entertaining way, with narrative, with emotion, with some laughter… and that just leads to faster conversations and education, which is really exciting.

AS: What was exciting to me as well is that there was in our film a kind of educational aspect— I mean, we don’t know whether the person who apologized actually sat down and watched Disclosure; I certainly hope she did! But certainly the conversations around her taking the role that she eventually had to decline, going on socials and entering in conversations she wasn’t really prepared to have…I think that the fact that it could be resolved so quickly was a big change to how these things normally go. The normal flow of “cancel culture” was interrupted, where someone doesn’t know what they don’t know, or says something offensive (whether knowingly or not knowingly), and then the response to that is so overwhelming and virulent that it turns into a cancel culture moment that doesn’t actually lead to any growth. And it was refreshing to me that we could provide something that could make that turnaround time much faster. So instead of that end-message being a negative around one person’s conduct and ignorance, it became, “thank you for listening to a community that you didn’t understand and thought you could speak to or about,” and, “thank you for changing your mind and listening and talking about taking steps to become an ally.” I loved that, and certainly that’s the goal I want to defend.

Q&A with Kris Rey and Gillian Jacobs

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The following questions and answers are excerpted from a conversation that followed the NBR screening of I Used to Go Here.

What was the inspiration for the film?

Kris Rey: I found the inspiration for the movie when I was on tour with my last film [Unexpected] four years ago. I got invited to a bunch of different universities in the states where I showed the movie and talked to students, and it was my first time going back to college as a professional adult. It was such a weird and fun dynamic… I sort of related more to the college students than I did to the professors. It reminded me of when I was a student, and I was like if a visiting filmmaker comes, maybe they’ll come get beers with us and hang out! And there were a few filmmakers that did do that, that came out to a bar. So I had this impulse when I went to the universities; I did go out and get drinks a few times with the students. And it was interesting because it really felt like being a celebrity— they were all very interested in me and asking questions, and it felt kind of undeserved at the time. I remember thinking, depending on where you were in your life, you could really get into that and maybe want to stay there for a while. There would be a temptation to keep that bubble going for as long as possible.

Can you talk about the casting process? I was impressed with the diversity of the cast.

KR: I always try to ground everything in realism and naturalism, even with a comedy, even if it gets a little broad. It’s what I like. It’s my taste. So when I’m looking for cast, I’m looking for people that look and act like real people. It’s funny; I got a text from my friend last night that said “I love that everyone looks like a real person,” and it’s such a funny compliment because of course every actor is a real person! No matter what they look like, they’re all real humans. But when I’m casting, I do look for someone that looks like their authentic self. It was important to me that all the college students felt like real college students. I didn’t want 30-year-olds playing 20-year-olds, and I really wanted them to look young and be fairly unknown. As far as the diversity goes, that all falls into place with the intention of creating a realistic cast, and trying very hard to represent what actually exists in real life. It can be challenging, because financiers are looking for recognizable names for roles. I had to fight for an Asian-American to play Laura, I really wanted Emma to be African-American, and I had to specify it in the scene descriptions for those characters, and then continue to push.

And Gillian, what drew you to the script?

Gillian Jacobs: I was doing a play in New York and I read the script and had a Skype meeting with Kris. We saw the character in the film the same way. I was really drawn to it because I felt it was a three-dimensional leading character who was grappling with her work and life as much as she was her romantic journey. I’m always really drawn to scripts that talk about those issues as well. I could relate to a lot of the things she was going through so I was very eager to get to work on this film with Kris.

I always try to ground everything in realism and naturalism, even with a comedy.

Can you talk about the rehearsal process? Were you able to spend time with the other cast members before the shoot?

GJ: Because a lot of us live in different places, we didn’t have a chance to rehearse traditionally before we started shooting. But all the scenes that took place at the lake were shot as this summer camp in Wisconsin, so we had this sort of built-in bonding time of driving from Chicago to the camp, spending a few days at the camp, and then driving back to Chicago. I felt like there was a big advantage to having all the cast in this big van together, talking for a few hours and getting to know each other. Everyone is so easy to get along with; they’re all really smart and charming and interesting. My sense is that all the actors that were playing the college students that lived together developed a kind of natural rapport pretty easily, and I loved spending time with them. I think that’s really a testament to Kris’s casting.

I loved the last scene between Kate and April. Both characters seemed to subvert expectations. How was it writing and shooting that scene?

KR: I love the character of April. Hannah Marks, who plays April, is so unbelievably cool and is similar to the character she plays. The last scene with April is actually a re-shoot. I’m glad you responded to it because the whole experience of ending the film was very stressful. We initially shot a totally different scene that was much more mild and awkward between them, a keep in touch kind of thing. Which had its moments, and worked on the page. But then when I saw the first cut of the movie, it just didn’t feel like it honored the character of April. And it left Kate with much to learn, so Gillian and I were kind of re-writing it on set together while we were doing those re-shoots. We were sitting down being like “should she say this?” because it happened really quickly. I love the way both actresses play the scene and I think it wound up being perfect.

GJ: Once again, Kris’s casting of Hannah – an actress/writer/director – was so brilliant. She’s doing all the things I aspire to do at a younger age than I started attempting any of those things. She’s such a terrific performer and I love this re-write of the scene where she’s really calling Kate out, and it really gets Kate to her most honest. It had been touched on in those scenes with Jermaine’s character and Josh’s character, where she’s sort of admitting the book is a failure. But I feel like the scene with Hannah really gets to a more honest place. It’s bad and I didn’t want to write a bad book and now I have to live with that.  I love that Kris’s script ended with a “I could’ve been better,” which is Kate at her most honest, but also being nicer to herself too.

Q&A with Benjamin Ree and Barbora Kysilkova

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

Can you both discuss how this film came about?
Benjamin Ree: The film began with me researching art robberies. In Norway, we have a great tradition regarding art robberies. And this story was on the front page of all the newspapers in Norway. And I immediately contacted Barbora after reading about it, and then Barbora had already met Karl Bertil-Nordland in the trial. And I thought that was a great setup, that the artist had approached her thief in court and asked if she could paint him. And we were very fortunate because before I came along, even though I had begun filming them very early on — I think they had met four times before I got access to film them — there was already a lot of archival footage: A friend of Barbora’s had filmed her, and documented her art projects, and even filmed her exhibition. So that was how I learned about the story, and I have to also mention that this started out as a short documentary. I figured it would be about ten minutes long! I did not have any idea where the story would end up, I just kept on filming. And then we just filmed for three years and the story grew. So I was as surprised as the audience hopefully is as they’re watching the turning points and the things that happen in the film.

Barbora Kysilkova: For me, of course it was a surprise already— the fact that somebody stole my art was a surprise, but that’s a different story. And then when Benjamin got in touch with me on the phone and introduced himself, I was like, OK, let’s just see what happens. And I think it was about half an hour after that call, and Benjamin was in my atelier in Oslo. And I was so surprised that he was such a young man! I kind of felt that a documentary filmmaker had to be an old man with a gray beard… I don’t know why I thought that. And immediately I felt that this person… I felt that this person is somebody I can immediately trust. And so I felt that, OK, then I knew that I could seriously get in touch with Karl Bertil-Nordland and ask him, of course, what he thinks about it. Because he is ineed — as we see in the film — he’s the one who really walks there, exposed, so much. So it was more about that he had to approve, or agree, on going forward with the project. And then, it was many years later without the camera when Karl Bertil-Nordland came to my atelier and we just spoke about why each of us decided to say yes to Benjamin to do the movie. So I said that, honestly, I did it for Karl. Because I really knew and felt that his life and his story is just so strong. And also the story of him and me together, and I just wanted to share it with whoever would be willing to see what can happen when one removes all the prejudices, and leaves behind all the stigmatizing tendencies… what happens, how that pays off. And then Karl said, simply, “well I did it for your art. To kind of pay you back for what I took away from you.” Which was a really nice moment. So that’s how we both decided to go for it.

whether it’s a painting or a movie, you just pour the new hope into the veins of the people

Over the course of making this film, and following the release and reactions to the film, how has your work changed?
BK: I am very glad to say I am a full-time painter. Meaning that I have constructed my life in a way that I’m able to just paint— I don’t do any other work. Seven days a week from morning to night I’m in my atelier and I paint. At this time, during the filming, the only difference for me was that there was sometimes a camera around me. So yes, I do feel of course very honored that several of my paintings are shown in the procedure of creation, and that art is exposed to the people who watch the movie. I have to say that what really brought certain changes in my work — and I mean not technically but, like, what brought new inspiration to me — really was Karl Bertil-Nordland. So I really do see Karl as my muse. He really is my muse. Which doesn’t mean that it has to be with every painting there has to be Karl. His influence and inspiration comes from many levels, many depths. And many layers. It’s basically… to get to know somebody like Karl, with his life stories, with the way he thinks about things, how he acts and reacts… it’s really an endless source of inspiration for me. So in this way, maybe, there could be spotted certain influences in my work since the moment I started to paint Karl, and since the very first moment — which was of course very absurd if you look at it in a certain way: I was actually inviting the thief of my paintings into my atelier, into my studio! — which if you look at it from a certain objective perspective, this is already absurd on its face. But I trusted my gut feeling, and thank god I did, because I think it all turned out so well for both of us. And as the time passed by, my studio became a sort of safe shelter for Karl when he sometimes needed to just have a break from the city, from the people… so he’d come over with some coffee and just crash down in the sofa and relax there… and spread his influence and his inspiration on me. And I put it on canvas.

Can you describe the experience of releasing this film — that so profoundly emphasizes the importance of human connection — during a global pandemic that is forcing us all to keep apart?
BR: We were so fortunate that we got to have a premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, which was amazing. And Barbora was recognized all over Park City, and even Salt Lake City, and every time I presented her up on stage she got a standing ovation! So we had a fantastic time doing that. And I think that the film says a lot about human connection. What we humans do in order to be seen, and appreciated, and what it takes of us to really see others… to help others. That is the main theme of the film and what we are exploring. So I think that, for me, the meaning of life is being together; socializing. And it says a lot about an unlikely friendship and why that happened.

BK: I agree with what Benjamin says, I’m very glad to have the opportunity to show this film in person at Sundance. It’s something quite different to watch the film alone in your living room than it is to sit in a huge cinema with hundreds of people and everybody is watching, and you hear their emotional responses, whether they’re laughing or… they were not booing, thank god! Of course it was a very strong experience. And as the Coronavirus struck — which nobody of course could predict — I actually do see it as a sort of fortunate thing, that it happened, because I’m receiving every day a lot of messages from different people across the US and Canada. And many of those messages have one thing in common: They tell me that this story really brought so much hope back to those people’s lives in this crazy unsecure time. And also, as Benjamin said, you do reevaluate what counts. What counts is the way that we treat each other, how we behave toward one another, so to read such feedback from different people… for me it is totally breathtaking. And I’m just so glad… I say, “mission accomplished!” This is what art should do: whether it’s a painting or a movie, you just pour the new hope into the veins of the people. And it might hurt as it runs through— hope is not just beauty or something pleasant, you probably have to bite through something more difficult. But that fills you with hope and belief in mankind again.