Best of 2022: Oscars Ballot

At Oscar time, editors pick the Best Editing nominees, and cinematographers make the Cinematography list, but Best Picture is the only category where the entire Academy has a voice. How does this year’s list repeat patterns or suggest departures from the Academy’s usual tastes? And how can we examine these films to illuminate what a screenwriter, a sound mixer, or a production designer might value in them? Using scenes from the films newly anointed by the Academy, we will bring a filmmaker’s eye to the voters’ favorites, while filling out our own ballots.

Join the Chicago International Film Festival and Nick Davis, Northwestern Professor and film critic, for a series of free interactive lectures exploring recent releases and festival films from around the world with a focus on the nuances of imagery, editing, and sound that complicate story and theme. This discussion is free and open to the public.

Optional viewing in advance: The Banshees of Inisherin, The Fabelmans, and Triangle of Sadness.

This event series is made possible with the support of the Robert & Penelope Steiner Family Foundation.