This year’s Venice Film Festival kicks off on Aug. 27, firing the starting gun for the film world’s marathon run to the Oscars. A couple of days later is the next awards-season stop: Telluride. A week after that (while the epic Venice schedule is still going), it’s Toronto. There are other notable film festivals a little later in the calendar, like New York and London, but it’s these three events (plus, increasingly, the Cannes festival in May) that showcase the vast majority of movies that earn nominations at the Oscars, the Golden Globes, and other awards ceremonies every year. They mark the moment at which the film industry comes roaring back from a summer of vacations and raking in blockbuster cash with one thing on its mind: silverware.

Thus begins a cycle that lasts almost a full six months until the Oscars ceremony in March. And really, the “awards race” is a whole industry in itself. Movies are conceived, financed, and made with the specific goal of playing at these festivals, earning nominations, and winning awards; it’s their entire marketing plan. Actors and studios execute Oscar campaigns as if they’re running for office. The awards burnish the reputation of the studios and the egos of the artists. But they also engage a different audience than the teens and families that flock to genre movies and summer fare, and they raise awareness of and sell tickets for a swathe of high-minded movies stuffed with big performances from famous actors that are instantly identifiable as “Oscar bait.” Trust Hollywood to turn the artier end of its output into a competitive sport — but, commercially, the system works.

So........

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