Oscar 2022: Is Jane Campion the favorite? Meet the director nominees

The Oscar 2022 race for best director is one of the most anticipated. This year competing “heavyweights” like Steven Spielberg and Jane Campion, who top the list in this category, the first because it has already taken home three golden statuettes and the second for being the strongest contender on the list, thanks to the fact that it is also an Oscar winner (The piano1993), for the criticism it received and for recently winning the Golden Globe for the power of the dog.

Additionally, Campion is one of only seven women to receive a best director nomination in Academy Award history. Your movie the power of the dog she has been a frontrunner since her debut at the Venice Film Festival in early 2022. This same year she also won the Silver Lion award for directing at Venice, becoming only the second woman to receive that honor and the first since 2009. Thanks to her nominations, she is the first woman to obtain two nominations for best director from the Academy.

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The list is completed by Paul Thomas Anderson, Kenneth Branagh and Ryusuke Hamaguchi, this last acclaimed filmmaker nominated for these awards for the first time.

Below is a profile of each nominated director:

Jane Campion, ‘The Power of the Dog’

• When Campion (68 years old) was nominated for The pianolost the award for best director to Spielberg himself for Schindler’s List. In 1994, the New Zealand filmmaker became the second woman nominated in the directing category. This year, she is considered her favorite for her western austere and evocative. He has won several awards and swept the Directors Guild Awards and took home best director trophies at the BAFTA and Critics Choice Awards. She would be the second woman in a row to win in the category after Chloe Zhoe prevailed last year by directing. Nomadland. Campion is also nominated for producer and for her adapted screenplay.

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Steven Spielberg, ‘West Side Story’

• He was last nominated in this category for Lincoln. He won two of his previous seven races for best director for Schindler’s List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). In 1961, Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins shared this award for the version of West Side Story. Spielberg (75 years old) has received two recognitions and awards for the new version of the musical. It is his first foray into the musical genre and has given the groundbreaking director his eighth nomination, matching Billy Wilder’s numbers and closing in on the historical leaders of the category, Martin Scorsese (9) and William Wyler (12).

Paul Thomas Anderson, ‘Licorice Pizza’

• He is one of the first filmmakers of the video store generation. The 51-year-old writer/director receives his third Oscar nomination in this category for this coming-of-age story set in the San Fernando Valley. The nostalgia-tinged film set in 1973 is a far cry from his heavyweight dramas like Magnolia (1999), There Will Be Blood (2007) and The master (2012). Anderson has also won other awards and for his most recent work he is also nominated for best picture and original screenplay. He is considered to be one of Hollywood’s greatest working masters. However, the Academy has not yet crowned him and Anderson has already accumulated 11 nominations without a prize, three of them as director.

Kenneth Branagh, ‘Belfast’

• The Belfast-born made history at the Oscars this year as his Producer and Original Screenplay nominations mean he has competed in seven categories. He had already garnered a nomination for best director for Henry V and also competed for best actor. Additionally, he has been nominated for Supporting Actor for My week with Marilynadapted script (Hamlet) and live action short film (swan song). Although Sir Kenneth, 62, was snubbed at the BAFTAs for directing BelfastIt won a Golden Globe for best screenplay.

Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, ‘Drive my Car’

• The acclaimed 44-year-old Japanese filmmaker earns his first Oscar nomination for his three-hour drama about a famous director grieving the unexpected death of his wife, who agrees to direct a production of Uncle Vanya. Hamaguchi is also nominated for Adapted Screenplay. Drive my Car, which is the first Japanese-language film to receive a best picture nomination, won the top award from film critics across the United States. Hamaguchi is the third Japanese filmmaker nominated in this category after Hiroshi Teshigahara and Akira Kurosawa. Critics say the filmmaker’s real battle is in the best foreign language film category.

Where and when to see the Oscars 2022

Remember that the most important and glamorous ceremony in the film industry is experiencing a new edition with the 94th Academy Awards, which will be broadcast by TNT (Spanish and TNT Series (original language), on Sunday, March 27, at 7:00 p.m., with comments by Ileana Rodríguez and Rafa Sarmiento. coverage of TNT It will begin at 5:30 p.m. with the ‘Punto de Encuentro’ preshow, which will include the presence on the red carpet of Lety Sahagún and Axel Kuschevatzky, who will interview the stars and celebrities present at the gala in Los Angeles. (AND)