Foreign Film Oscar Watch: 43 Submissions and Counting!
Friday, September 19, 2014 at 2:00PM With the expected announcements today from Belgium (Two Days One Night) and Canada (Mommy), forty-three countries have already announced their Oscar submissions which means we have 2/3rds of the list already (It's usually around 65-70 films). Okay, technically we have 42 at this writing but Canada will have announced by the time you read this (I'm offline for a few hours travelling hence publishing without that news) which we hope is the incredible Mommy. Every submission chart has been updated to reflect all the recent announcements.
I'm illustrating this news update with the striking poster from Colombia's entry Mateo which is about a teenager who is asked by his crime boss Uncle to infiltrate a local theater group and tell him everything about their political activities...
I haven't seen the film but from the looks of the poster he's enjoying his time with theater friends and might not want to betray them. Thus, DRAMA to come.
Of the 43 official submissions I have seen only five and I'd rank them in this order (links go to reviews or capsules if they exist here already):
- Force Majeure (Sweden)
- Mommy (Canada)
- Ida (Poland)
the top three are basically tied. the number will change depending on my mood - they're all deeply impressive - Beloved Sisters (Germany) - review next week
- 1001 Grams (Norway)
But I've seen another handful of assumed submissions or viable threats for submission that we're still waiting on official word about...
- Argentina (Wild Tales?)
- Cuba (Behavior?)
- Iceland (Life in a Fishbowl?)
- Israel (The Farewell Party?)
And now an amusing coincidence!
Both Germany's submission (Beloved Sisters) and Greece's submission (Little England) which appear side by side on the alphabetical chart are dramas about two sisters in love with the same man! I haven't seen the Greek film but in the German entry the sisters are totally okay with sharing. Or at least they plan to be in this feverish plunge into three hours of hopeless romanticism. It opens in the US on December 24th.
a very memorable scene from Germany's "Beloved Sisters"
Here are the charts. Explore and share with friend!
Pt. 1 Afghanistan through Ethiopia - 14 official submissions thus far
Pt. 2 Finland through Panama - 18 official submissions thus far including the first ever submission from Panama called Invasión
Pt. 3 Peru through Vietnam -11 submissions thus far
Reader Comments (23)
There was a press conference an hour ago in Montreal: Xavier's Mommy is in! (Im seeing it tomorrow. It's opening today in Montreal, can't wait!!)
Your coverage is simply outstanding.
stjeans & peggy sue -- thanks. Updated to include MOMMY so we're very in the now today :)
stjeans...I'm seeing Mommy tomorrow, too. I hope it's as good as everyone is saying.
I did catch Little England, the Greek submission, at the Montréal World Film Festival last month. It's not badly done, though I found it a tad long (something like 2:18, IIRC). While it is a story of two women in love with the same man, the plot is a little more complicated than that. Older daughter wants to marry her lover, but mother refuses, saying he's not good enough for her. A few years later, when she wants to marry off the younger daughter, she decides that the guy is good enough for this daughter. Mommy Dearest, indeed!
Anyway, the Montréal festival is a good place to catch Foreign-language Oscar candidates...with the proviso that you have to be psychic, since most countries won't have announced by the time the festival happens in late August. For example, I could have seen the Colombian submission there...and the Japanese...and the Estonian...but I just didn't get around to seeing them. (40 films in 11 days...you have to make choices somewhere.) I did manage to see a few on your list which were not chosen, or haven't yet been chosen, so maybe my totals will improve.
According to my very reliable source (StorytellerT on twitter), the following were also announced today:
Lithuania - The Gambler
South Korea - Sea Fog
Slovakia - A Step Into The Dark
Your coverage is fantastic! Thank you sir!
I know it's early, but do we have a frontrunner for the crow yet?
Pamonha -- i'm not sure what you mean. "the crow"?
A cool thing about that Mateo poster is the young spy seems to be held aloft in a *trust* exercise...
Maybe "crown" not "crow?"
NATHANIEL R and Arkaan - The right word is crown... and "already" instead of "yet".
I'm not good in english. Tks
Pamonha - I have to believe that Ida (Poland) has a great shot at win if nominated . I think Cuba's Behavior might also impress AMPAS if submitted. I think Sweden and Canada's entries are great bug unlikely winners given chillier and more polarizing, respectively, than they would usually go for.
Sweden's Force Majeure is "chillier." Hehe.
One of the biggest questions in the race for me is Timbuktu. It's been playing at all the festivals, but I barely hear anything about it. When I do, it's good, but those reviews are few and far between.
The way he looks- Hoje eu quero voltar Sozinho- is the brazilian submission!
I've only seen two of the contenders so far*. I'm one of the few in the world who isn't as enamoured with IDA as everyone else (I thought it was not bad, but the WW2 and Catholic themes just felt too much "been here, seen that" for me to fully engage).
However, I am here to promote the Chile entry TO KILL A MAN, in the hope that it may pull a DOGTOOTH in that it become a dark-story film that gets a nomination. I found it utterly gripping and engaging, and this is saying something for a slow-paced film. I hope the award and accolades it won at this year's Sundance festival are not so far away as to sweep it into serious contention.
*I have seen my home country's assumed ebtry, Australia's CHARLIE'S COUNTRY, but nothing has been made official yet.
Totally jealous of those seeing Mommy. I thought the line up from the Academy last year was pretty eh, so here's hoping this year gives us a real competition. Loved the reaction from Dolan when he heard Mommy was the choice as well.
Travis, surely CHARLIE'S COUNTRY doesn't meet the 50% requirement. We actually also have CANOPY, which only has about eight lines of dialogue for the whole film, but about all but one are in Chinese.
Glenn, I haven't measured it, but when I watched it I was aware it could be our entry, and it felt like it was more than 50%.
I missed CANOPY unfortunately, mainly because it wasn't well received by local critics here (and you know as well as I do that if Margaret and David give an average-to-low score for a limited release movie, it pretty much sounds the death-knell for it commercially). I believe you liked it, so I am disappointed I missed it now.
Israel has gone with Gett.
As Henry wrote, Gett was selected as best picture at last night's Ophir Awards and will automatically become Israel's pick for the Oscars. The winning itself was very unusual, as Gett only won one other award - Best supporting actor to Sasson Gabai.
Zero Motivation picked six awards, including best director, screenplay and actress, while The Farewell Party took home four.
And France has gone with Saint Laurent. I have no desire to see that one...
Nat, Switzerland's "The Circle" was one of the best films that I saw at the Montréal World Film Festival last month. Here's the description from the Festival's website:
Founded in the early 1940s, the network around the magazine Der Kreis (The Circle) was the only gay organization to survive the Nazi regime. It blossomed during the postwar years into an internationally renowned underground club. Legendary masked balls at the Theater am Neumarkt in Zurich provided 800 visitors from all over Europe with a secret and safe space to act out their "otherness" in their own way. It is there that timid teacher Ernst Ostertag falls in love with drag star Röbi Rapp. Ernst searches for a way to fight to be accepted as normal outside the boundaries of The Circle network without losing his employment as a teacher. Röbi champions the joint fruition of their love. Following a murder in the gay community, violent repression against gay people also endangers The Circle network.
It's a blend of documentary (the real-life Ernst and Röbi, who are still alive and still together, and who were the first same-sex Swiss couple to legally register their partnership) and dramatizations of what actually happened. Personally, I think it deserves a nomination.
KOSOVO submitted "Three Windows and a Hanging" as their entry.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscars-kosovo-selects-three-windows-734975