WINTER'S BONE - Four Academy Award® Nominations:

Tuesday January 26, 2011

4 Oscar® Nominations for independent film

*WINTER’S BONE* *
* *R13+ Violence, Drug Use and * *

*Offensive Language* *

Now playing in NZ Cinemas
* *
Today the Academy acknowledged movies big and small in this year’s major categories, including four nods for the small budget independent film WINTER'S BONE, which received four Academy Award® nominations including Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress for newcomer Jennifer Lawrence and Best Supporting Actor John Hawkes. WINTER'S BONE Director Debra Granik, together with Anne Roselinni adapted the novel of the same name written by Daniel Woodrell (Hatchette NZ - Publishers), into a powerfully raw and gripping screenplay. *
* WINTER'S BONE is the story of seventeen-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) sets out to track down her father, who put their house up for his bail bond and then disappeared. If she fails, Ree and her family will be turned out into the Ozark woods. Challenging her outlaw kin's code of silence and risking her life, Ree hacks through the lies, evasions and threats offered up by her relatives and begins to piece together the truth. * *

“We may be one of the lower budget films that’s ever been able to participate in something like this,” commented Debra Granik “It emboldens you to keep trying, to look for more stories. It gets you all revved up. You want to deliver again. Audiences become your muse. And you want to come back to them with something worth their time. As an underdog, it gives you fuel to want to do good work and bring it back.”

Jennifer Lawrence (Ree), who is now 19 years old and has never taken acting classes or had formal training, is finding the experience overwhelming - not only for her own nomination for Best Actress but all four Oscar® nominations: " When you make a tiny movie like that on a shoestring budget in the freezing cold - this has surpassed any expectation I could've had. And that's why it just feels so good. We all made it without this in mind. We all made it because we loved and believed in the movie. And to see this happen to it and to us, there's no feeling like it."

The New York Times described the film and Lawrence's star-making performance as "Suspenseful, surprising and subtle with a memorable and vivid a heroine as you are likely to see."

The Film has already won the Grand Jury Prize, Dramatic Film and Best Screenplay Award at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. It also received two awards at the 2010 Berlin Film Festival and at the Stockholm International Film Festival it won awards for Best Film, Best Actress (Jennifer Lawrence) and the Fipresci Prize. In New York last November the film won Best Feature and Best Ensemble Performance at the 2010 Gotham Awards and earned seven nominations at the 2010 Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Actress. ** *Curious Film (**http://www.curiousfilm.com**/) distributed WINTER'S BONE in NZ on October 28 to widespread critical acclaim - the film is currently playing at Rialto Cinema in Newmarket, Paramount in Wellington and many other cinemas around New Zealand. (**www.flicks.co.nz* <*). *

*What some of New Zealand's leading Film Critics said about WINTER'S BONE: * ** */Five Stars! /**//"Don't Miss it....one of the year's highlights. If there's any justice it will be celebrated come Oscar time.” Peter Calder, NZ Herald* * * */Five Stars! /**//"A Stunning Film’ Graeme Tuckett, Dominion Post* * * */Four & 1/2 Stars!/**// Kate Rodger, Film3 recommends: /Winter's Bone/ is winning awards everywhere and I predict will feature come Oscar's season, go see it.* *//* */Four & 1/2 Stars!/**//“A gripping tale.” James Croot, The Press* * * */4 Stars/ **- The Otago Daily Times *

ENDS

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