By Marti Dols Roca.

As in every single year, the debate is served; some will use the Oscars as a guide to know which films have to be watched; some will just try to win their office raffle; some will claim they don’t give a toss about the Academy Awards and, most definitely, some will criticize the results. Whatever the case may be, it will be almost impossible to remain oblivious to the events taking place at the other side of the red carpet.

There will be tears, joy and anti Trump speeches; worst and best outfits and lots of selfies. La La Land will probably be the star of the night and as it happened with The Artist, Argo or Birdman, we will hear the same old (and probably true) speech: there are certain movies which are prone to win because bla bla bla…

Newspapers will fill with Oscar’s related news and for a couple of days everyone will play a specific role regarding what needs to be said about the brand-new statuette owners. Everyone who is in a position to talk about it, of course, if you are a refugee freezing your balls off at the Mediterranean I’m not sure you’ll care too much about Manchester by the sea. Not at least in that sense…

Anyway, Hollywood is quite far from Greece so let’s not lose track. Hollywood is, in fact, a show. The Show. And it must go on. So, why do we care if it’s the only time of the year when we will hear our heroes and heroines positioning themselves politically? And why do we pretend we actually believe this is about the actual best movie? And hey, sometimes they actually get it right: case in point, Spotlight. And, double hey, who would’ve liked to be in the jury’s shoes back in 2000 when the list was as prolific as: Magnolia, The Matrix, The Cider House Rules, American Beauty, The Green Mile, The Sixth Sense, Being John Malkovich, The Hurricane, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Boys Don’t Cry, All About My Mother, Buena Vista Social Club, Fight Club and Sleepy Hollow? Check it out, it was crazy.

So let’s not get carried away, nor let ourselves be mesmerised. The Oscars are what The Oscars are. It’s just up to us to give them a greater or lesser degree of importance.

The latest feature from acclaimed writer-director Maren Ade, Toni Erdmann is a remarkably touching and outrageously funny portrait of an offbeat father-daughter relationship. But fathers with on-screen daughters are a rarity – most stories feature father-son relationships. The films that do celebrate the special bond between a father and daughter are often the most remarkably poignant, moving stories.

To celebrate the release of Toni Erdmann, in cinemas 3 February, we’ve rounded up the best father-daughter duos on screen.

Toni Erdmann (2017)

Sandra Hüller plays Ines, a highly-strung career woman whose life in corporate Bucharest takes a turn for the bizarre with the arrival of her estranged father Winfried (Peter Simonischek). A practical joker with a liking for silly disguises and childish pranks, Winifried attempts to reconnect with his daughter by introducing the eccentric alter ego Toni Erdmann to catch Ines off guard, not knowing how capable she is of rising to the challenge. The breakout hit of last year’s Cannes Film Festival and the recipient of universal critical acclaim, Toni Erdmann is as humanist as it is absurdist – a comedy about the importance of celebrating the humour of the everyday.

Everyone loves a good scare… don’t they? Well like it or lump it, the horror genre is alive and kicking (like many on the list below) as it continues to be one of the most thriving and most profitable genres in Hollywood. There are many ways that a good horror film can get under your skin; from psychological chills through narrative like Rosemary’s Baby and The Exorcist, to the outright weird and creepy like The Evil Dead and Texas Chainsaw Massacre; and of course, using suspense and surprise to make audiences jump out of their seats in shock; like The Blair Witch Project.

To celebrate the release of this highly anticipated sequel – Blair Witch – on DVD & Blu-ray January 23^rd, we take a look at some of the greatest scares to ever make it onto the big screen.

The Blair Witch Project / Blair Witch (1999 / 2016)

The Blair Witch Project is a film that was truly groundbreaking when it first arrived in cinemas, and gave new outlook the genre. Three college students decide to investigate a local rumour of woods in Maryland being haunted by the unforgiving Blair Witch for a class project, armed with nothing but their video cams. As they progress further into the woods they begin to realise that their school exercise is becoming a nightmare when they get lost and discover strange artefacts from (what can only be) the Blair Witch, still living in the woods. The true horror of this film lies in its presentation with handheld, home-video quality footage, and for a long time fans suspected the film to be a real-life video documentary about kids that had disappeared and never found again. Blair Witch picks up where the original left off, with the younger brother of one of the victims venturing out into the woods to try and find her, with the help of some caring friends of course. Although this is a sequel, the film does try to build up the original’s story, with the trees and atmosphere of the forest playing a much bigger role and playing on its supernatural elements. Hopefully, after this one, people will stop going into those woods!