Variety (and others) are just reporting about a new award the Santa Barbara Film Festival will be giving out:

The Santa Barbara Film Festival will honor Casey Affleck (“Gone Baby Gone,” “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford”), Marion Cotillard (“La Vie en rose”), James McAvoy (“Atonement”), Ellen Page (“Juno”) and Amy Ryan (“Gone Baby Gone”) with its inaugural Virtuosos Award.

Nod was established this year to recognize the performances of a select group of young actors. They will be honored during a tribute ceremony Jan. 30 at Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theater.”

There will always be one or two performances that stand out, but this year in particular there were several performances by actors that truly set them apart from the pack,” said fest exec Roger Durling.

The Santa Barbara Film Festival runs Jan. 24-Feb. 3.

The award was created to recognize a group of young actors who have distinguished themselves through performances in film this past year. Congratulations Marion Cotillard!

After the New York Online critics, New York Film Critics Circle as well as the San Francisco Film Critics Circle all named Julie Christie Best Actress Marion Cotillard’s name shows up in the list of nominees by 2 other Critics Associations:

Chicago Film Critics Association (source):
Best Actress – Nominations
Julie Christie – “Away From Her”
Marion Cotillard – “La Vie En Rose”
Angelina Jolie – “A Mighty Heart”
Laura Linney – “The Savages”
Ellen Page – “Juno”

Winners of the 2007 Chicago Film Critics Awards will be announced Friday by entertainment reporter and critic Dean Richards during the morning newscast on WGN-TV Channel 9.

Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards (source)
Best Actress – Nominations
Amy Adams – “Enchanted”
Cate Blanchett – “Elizabeth: The Golden Age”
Julie Christie – “Away From Her”
Marion Cotillard – “La Vie en Rose”
Angelina Jolie – “A Mighty Heart”
Ellen Page – “Juno”

The 13th annual awards will be presented during a live VH1 broadcast Jan. 7, with D.L. Hughley as host. The Broadcast Film Critics Association is the largest film critics’ organization, comprising more than 200 North American members representing TV, radio and online critics.

Both Critics Associations also nominated La Vie en Rose itself for Best Foreign Language Film.

This Sunday indeed is a happy day – well, for me it’s already a new day – since also the Los Angeles Film Critics Association have chosen Marion Cotillard for their Best Actress award! Congratulations!

Runner-up was Anamaria Marinca for “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days”. Read The Hollywood Reporter article on the winners etc.

Awards season is in full swing and the various Film Critics Circles and Societies are announcing their winners – considered Oscar precursors. Yesterday afternoon, the Boston Society of Film Critics announced their winners and Marion Cotillard was named Best Actress! Congratulations! Read the Variety report on the winners.

Scott Feinberg posted a blog entry with information about what was going on behind the scenes: how the winners were determined and, since no runner-ups were announced, who/what else was in contention.

Marion Cotillard won Best Actress handily on the second ballot. Apparently, the only others with any real support at all were Julie Christie and Ellen Page.

And the always informative blog Marion Cotillard’s Road to Oscar is pointing out that Marion is the first actress from a foreign language film to be awarded by the BSFC since 1982.

Variety has a new article/interview where we can find out more about Marion Cotillard’s passion for musicals and that the original concept for La Vie en Rose was even more that of a musical. Be sure to read it.

“My dream is to be in a musical. I was taken with the singing and tap dancing. As a little girl, I wanted to play Annie. She was my hero. I still love that movie. I’d watch it again.”

‘You and Me‘ – one of my favourite Marion Cotillard movies – is being shown at the 11th Annual Festival of New French Cinema in Chicago this Saturday, December 8th at 9pm. Buy tickets online.

On a less happier note, Marion Cotillard’s performance in La Vie en Rose was not acknowledged when the winners of this year’s National Board of Review of Motion Pictures Awards were announced yesterday. Julie Christie (Away From Her) was named Best Actress and Ellen Page (Juno) received the Breakthrough Award. The film itself was named one of the Top 5 Foreign Films though. NBR Awards have no commercial ties to the motion-picture industry and support film, domestic and foreign, as both art and entertainment.

There is a new interview with Marion Cotillard featured with today’s issue of The Los Angeles Times: it can be found in a Special magazine called The Envelope in Print: The Music Issue. If anyone can get a copy of it and send in scans – or tell me how I can aquire it – I’d be more than happy!

Read the interview here.

Also, Marion Cotillard made #2 on Vogue’s 10 Best Dressed of the Week list. It was her appearance at the Gotham Awards that caught their attention – and deservedly so!

While making a visit to the online world – these visits have become rather rare these days, sorry – I came across the fantastic news of Marion Cotillard being nominated for a Satellite Award as Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. Congratulations!

Other nominees in this category are Julie Christie for “Away From Her”, Angelina Jolie for “A Mighty Heart”, Tilda Swinton for “Stephanie Daley”, Keira Knightly for “Atonement” and Laura Linney for “The Savages”. See the complete list of nominees here. The 12th annual ceremony will be held Dec. 16 in Century City, with awards going out in 49 categories.

Then, I must inform you all – if you haven’t found out yourself already – that Marion Cotillard has also been nominated for an European Film Award as European Actress 2007. Again, the competition included some very stellar acting talents: Marianne Faithful in “Irina Palm”, Carice van Houten in “Zwartboek” (Black Book), Anamaria Marinca in “4 Luni, 3 Saptamini Si 2 Zile” (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days), Helen Mirren in “The Queen” and Ksenia Rappoport in “La Sconosciuta”. Sadly, when the European Film Awards took place yesterday in Berlin it was Helen Mirren who won the award!

Variety just reported that the current writers’ strike delayed the production of ‘Nine’ – Marion Cotillard’s rumoured upcoming project:

The Weinstein Co., meanwhile, postponed “Nine,” the Rob Marshall-directed musical that was slated to start production in March with Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren and Marion Cotillard starring.In all four cases, the sponsoring studios decided they couldn’t overcome logistical and script problems exacerbated by the Writers Guild strike that is preventing rewrites, along with the looming expirations of the Directors Guild and Screen Actors Guild contracts in June. Other films are struggling to avoid the same fate.

“Nine,” the first collaboration between Marshall and Harvey Weinstein since the Oscar-winning “Chicago,” is now skedded to begin production in the second half of 2008. After Michael Tolkin wrote the script, TWC engaged Anthony Minghella to do a polish, but he was able to put in only three days of work before the writers guild went out.

Because of the intricate interaction between the script and the choreography that Marshall and John DeLuca plan, it was decided to wait for the writers to return, so the script can be properly completed.

Bardem will play the director Guido Contini, who experiences a creative and personal crisis as he tries to balance the women in his life, including his wife, mistress, film-star muse, agent and even his mother. The musical was inspired by the Fellini film “8½.” Music and lyrics are by Maury Yeston, composer and lyricist of the original production.

Catherine Zeta-Jones, who had been in talks to play one of the lead roles, dropped out of the movie, but the postponement was unrelated to her exit.

Regarding the last sentence it was New York Daily News who reported about it first. Citing a source claiming the actress had asked if the writer could enlarge her part. However, a friend insists she never officially commited and ultimately decided against the project because she felt it would be too similar a role to the one she played in ‘Chicago’.

Marshall is said to be looking for a slightly younger actress to play Claudia. Among those under consideration: Natalie Portman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Liv Tyler, Keira Knightley and Kate Hudson.

A ‘proper’ official announcement of the ‘Nine’ cast members has never been made although director Rob Marshall mentioned in an interview with The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette the cast would include Javier Bardem, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz and Sophia Loren. Marion Cotillard herself has not actually confirmed her commitment for sure but has alluded to it on several occasions. Let’s all hope she will do this movie even if it for the time being became another victim of the strike!

Oscar Season is approaching! Thanks to Jess and Marion Cotillard’s Road to Oscar for the heads up about the first ‘For Your Consideration’ trade ad that will hopefully remind all the Academy voters of Marion Cotillard’s outstanding performance in ‘La Vie En Rose’!

To keep up with all the Marion/Oscar-related buzz be sure to visit the afore-mentioned excellent blog!

Also read my guest post about ‘Les Jolies Choses’ (‘Pretty Things’) over there. Many thanks for inviting me and giving me this chance Road to Oscar!