Past Lives!

Have you seen it yet? Because if you haven’t, and you’re following award season, it’s well past time for you to get caught up on one of the most acclaimed films of the year that could be contending alongside all the big bombs and the Barbies and the Scorseses. 

 

Best Feature is the Gotham Awards equivalent of Best Picture, and it was Celine Song’s Past Lives that won last night in New York. We cape extra hard here for Celine because she is Korean Canadian, based in NYC. And now her film is picking up solid momentum for consideration across multiple categories at the Oscars. Best Picture is a possibility, Original Screenplay is a very good possibility, and Greta Lee for a Best Actress nomination? Right now, the race seems wide open, and there are seven or eight actresses who are in contention in a very competitive year; I don’t know that Greta is going to get into the final five, but the fact that her film is standing tall at the Gothams definitely won’t hurt. 

 

Right now, though? Greta’s just thrilled for Celine and obviously so honoured and grateful to be part of the Past Lives team. 

 

Look how cute they are together!

Greta Lee and Celine Song at the 33rd Annual Gotham Awards held at Cipriani Wall Street on November 27, 2023 in New York City
 

It’s too bad Teo Yoo couldn’t be there. 

David Hinojosa, Pamela Koffler, Celine Song, Greta Lee and John Magaro at the 33rd Annual Gotham Awards held at Cipriani Wall Street on November 27, 2023 in New York City
 

I’m hoping that as we get deeper into the season, Teo will be able to join in on the Past Lives campaign. After all, a scene this beautiful wouldn’t have been possible without him. 

 

Past Lives is an A24 film, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you at this point the success that A24 has had at the Oscars. Everything Everywhere All At Once is the reigning Best Picture and now they have another horse they’re riding into award season. Past Lives is not going to see the same results as EEAAO, but it will have the A24 Oscar experience behind it. And with this triumph at the Oscars, A24 will for sure be strategising how to build on this momentum, putting their efforts behind Celine Song’s masterpiece. What an incredible achievement for a first-time filmmaker. 

And speaking of breakthrough film directors… 

A.V. Rockwell won the Gotham for Breakthrough Director; Celine was also nominated in this category. A.V.’s film, A Thousand and One is, like Past Lives, a portrait of a fraught relationship, only in this case it’s the relationship between a mother and her son. Teyana Taylor is extraordinary in the film, guided by the A.V.’s steady, confident, and daring direction. She tells a bold story of Black motherhood that is complicated and compassionate, and together with Celine Song, it’s SO exciting to see such diversity emerge from behind the camera in an industry that has been so lacking in female directors of colour.