Screen International is profiling all the winners of the third Global Production Awards, which were held tonight (May 19) at the Mademoiselle Gray Barriere in Cannes.
Outstanding Use of Locations
Winner: Touch (Focus Features & Universal Pictures, US)
To win this plaudit a single production had to demonstrate a creative use of locations, with judges looking at how the team made locations work for the project.
The panel was impressed by the varied locations in Focus Features and Universal Pictures drama Touch, about a man from Iceland attempting to track down the Japanese love of his life — four decades after they first met in London. Not only did the production span three countries — Japan, Iceland and the UK — but also two distinct decades, the 1960s and pandemic-era 2020s. “The multi-location and era nature of the production is defining,” said one judge.
Shooting on location in each country in 2022, during which they had to overcome multiple challenges such as delays in obtaining the Japanese permits, recreating a 1960s London restaurant in Iceland’s GN Studios and filming on Tokyo’s busy Shibuya Crossing, the team under director Baltasar Kormakur was authentic to both location and time period in craft choices, particularly across production and costume design. They also took care to develop a screenplay with a balance of Japanese, Icelandic and English languages. As a result, the final production captures each location’s distinctive culture.
One judge noted the portrayal of the three countries in the film, while another praised the production’s “good problem solving to find adequate locations to film in and overcome obstacles”.
Nominees:
- Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1 (Moab To Monument Valley Film Commission, US)
- Norah (Film AlUla, Saudi Arabia)
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