The Fall Festival trifecta of Venice/Telluride/Toronto have traditionally been the venues for the serious start of Oscar season.
But that kind of awards season mojo has been shifting, however slowly, with the most recent Best Picture winner, Oppenheimer released in July 2023, and 2022 winner Everything Everywhere All At Once released in March of their respective years.
In fact the big Oscar opponent and BAFTA winner to the latter title, All Quiet On The Western Front also defied the odds, having first played at Berlin in late winter of 2022, around the same time Everything Everywhere debuted at SXSW.
Cannes also has become a much bigger factor in recent years launching such winners and contenders as Parasite, Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Triangle Of Sadness, Anatomy Of A Fall, Drive My Car, The Zone Of Interest and more in the past few years that all went on to Best Picture nominations, against the previous common wisdom that Cannes was a risky place to start an Oscar run as May is so far away from the prime time to campaign.
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