HFPA

Lorenzo Soria has been re-elected President of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association for the 2016-2017 year. This will be Soria’s fourth term in office, following his tenure in 2003-2004, 2004-2005 and 2015-2016.

Parties are Cannes’ unique language, and the HFPA speaks it very well – and with a purpose. On Friday, May 13, the Association threw a cocktail party at the glamorous Nikki Beach of the Carlton Hotel, on the Croisette, to benefit and honor FilmAid International.

The longest-running film noir festival in Los Angeles returns to the Egyptian Theatre, anchored by movies that were restored with funds provided by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.  The Film Noir Foundation's Noir City festival  returned to Hollywood for its 17th annual edition and both the opening and the closing of the festival featured HFPA-funded restorations.

Nadia Comaneci and Caitlyn Jenner (then Bruce) were both gold medal winners at the 1976 Olympics but they never met in Montreal. It took the Golden Globes to align the planets or at least the (Olympic) stars.

For the third year in a row the Hollywood Foreign Press Association was applauded at the annual Noir City, the San Francisco noir film festival, for its support of the restoration of endangered noir films. The 14th edition of Noir City, currently under way in San Francisco, has an added international flavor: the film restored with HFPA support, Los tallos amargos (The Bitter Stems) is not a USA noir, but an Argentinian classic, the 1956 winner of the Silver Condor award for best feature, given by the Argentinian Film Critics Association.

The biographical drama Trumbo about blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo received two Golden Globes nominations in 2015: Bryan Cranston for his portrayal of Trumbo, the highest-paid screenwriter of his day, and Helen Mirren for her role as Trumbo's nemesis, Hollywood actress turned gossip columnist Hedda Hopper. The red scare that stalked America and most visibly Hollywood after the end of the Second World War was one of the most shameful chapters in the history of the United States.

As part of its continued efforts in the area of education, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) has awarded California State University, Northridge $2 million to support students and enhance technology in the school’s acclaimed Department of Cinema and Television Arts. A portion of the grant will go toward creating endowed scholarships to support underrepresented film and television students in the industry.

Members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association were honored with four nominations at the 8th Annual National Arts and Entertainment Awards including best journalistic use of Social Media and best general news. Janet Nepales scored a 2nd Place for Celebrity News with her article “Spotlight on Fil-Am Co-Director of Pixar’s Inside Out” for the Manila Bulletin.