Foreign Oscar Buzz: Israel, Hungary and Romania
Wednesday, August 14, 2013 at 1:00PM Soon we'll be inundated with Foreign Film Oscar Submission news but for now news from three countries to get us started. The Oscar Charts will be up this weekend for this always diverse and exciting (if you're paying attention) category. [Thanks to Daniel, Yonatan and A.D. for the tips]
S#x Acts
ISRAEL
Israel has been on a hot streak with Oscar with four nominations in the past six years so news of the Ophir Awards is always important. This narrows the field for which film will be their official submission since they go with the Ophir winner. Seven films are in the running for their Best Picture (The Ophir).
The frontrunner is Bethlehem (12 nominations) a drama about the Arab- Israel conflict which focuses on three characters: An Israeli secret services agent, his teenage Palestinian informant and the informant's older brother, a commander of the Al Aqsa Martyr's brigade. Other nominees include S#x Acts, a drama about a transfer student who improves her social status via the boys at her new school. Sukaryot is about an Israeli-Arab entrepreneur wants to open a chain of candy store competing directly with an Israeli corporation. Magic Men is a dramedy about a Hasidic Jew who joins his magician father on a trip to Greece to find the man who saved his father during the Holocaust. And the soul comedy is Hunting Elephants about a child's adult relatives who set out to rob a bank. (Patrick Stewart is one of the leads so perhaps this will have too much English dialogue to qualify?) Far less likely are two films which only scored Best Picture nominations at the Ophirs: White Panther about a young Russian who seeks refuge from street gangs in a local boxing gym and I Am Bialik, a mockumentary about a man who claims he's descended from Israel's national poet.
ROMANIA
Tough Romanian cinema has been hot with critics for nearly a decade but has yet to catch on with the Academy, who (generally speaking) prefer warmer films. Can Child's Pose, their 2013 submission, break through? The Golden Bear winning film stars the acclaimed Luminita Gheorghiu who previously appeared in two of the country's most important exports (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and The Death of Mr Lazarescu).
Luminita in "Child's Pose"
The Guardian synopsizes the contemporary political drama like so:
the film tells the story of a mother's desperate and often illegal attempts to save her son from prosecution after he knocks down and kills an impoverished teenager...
HUNGARY
The official submission is The Notebook/A nagy füzet which was the Karlovy Vary winner. Hungary had a solid Oscar run in the 1980s but has had difficult finding traction since and especially in the past couple of decades when they've made very daring oddball choices for their representative films. This new one appears to be more in Oscar's wheelhouse since it's about two young boys ripped from their parents during World War II.
For whatever reason, Oscar has historically been very kind to narratives about children in wartime in this category, not just because at least a handful of films that fit that genre seem to be submitted each year but because the tear-jerking obviously transcends culture and language barriers. This one looks discomfitingly unsentimental though with children hardening themselves to atrocities.
If you've seen any of these at festivals, have your say in the comments. Which country are you most excited to see land a nod this year?
Reader Comments (7)
That picture of Luminita is priceless and the movie looks interesting. We'll see. The omission of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days still hurts.
LOL. If SIX ACTS ends up Israel's selection then I can't imagine any world in which it gets nominated.
Fingers crossed for CHILD'S POSE making the final 5. Gheorghiu's towering performance makes this a must for actressexuals!
And that trailer for THE NOTEBOOK looks devastating.
"Child's Pose" really is pretty great. In a fair world, Gheorgiu would be in the running for Best Actress. But you're right: it again has a certain coldness to it...
The real "shocker" at the ophirs was the snubbing of "Big Bad Wolves" at the best picture categorey. Not only is it getting rave reviews ( here in Israel and abroad), gathering some (minor) festival buzz, it's also nominated for every other category but best picture.
Also, I really hope that Hunting Elephents won't win even though it has a high chance of getting an oscar nomination and maybe even win (old people, crowd pleaser) . I didn't see it yet but it's director put on a mega-whining " boo-hoo someone critized my film" post on his facebook, saying that film critics are bullies and using cheap patriotic means (" i learned my morals in the army") to basically say that no one is allowed to not like his film, because we are such a small industry so we should all say thanks and praise every film that someone passes along here. twat.
I don't know or much care what Ampass will make of Child's Pose. I just want to say that is a stunning piece of work.
Between it and 4 Months 3 Weeks and Lazarescu and Tuesday, After Christmas and Beyond the Hills (and Boogie and Everybody in Our Family and Police Adjective and California Dreamin etc etc etc) - contemporary Romanian cinema has reached the level of 90s Iranian or 60s French.
Also FYC for the Film Bitch Awards:
Best Actress - Luminita Gheorghiou
goran -- i wont be able to "consider..." if the film doesn't open here so crossing my fingers. It's so rare now for the submissions to open in the same calendar year as they're submitted. Boo.