"everything u ever wanted to know about the foreign film category
*...but were afraid to ask"
Pt 1 81 Trailers | Pt 2 Women Directors & Debuts | Pt 3 Zoology | Pt 4 I know that face!
who will follow Pawel Pawlikowski (Poland's IDA) to an Oscar win for Foreign Language Film?OKAY OKAY. We promise to calm down now.
We hope you've enjoyed our week long attempt to get you really pumped up for an Oscar category that's sometimes hard to get invested: Best Foreign Language Film. The films can be hard to track down making this competition less accessible, so we try our statistics and anecdotes and lists to pique your curiosity!
But from here on out we'll try to track down as many as we can and actually see them. Imagine it: seeing movies! Please do share this series on twitter and facebook and whatnot. It's so much work and so many websites just depressingly print text only lists of titles and call it a day! We've already reviewed or done interviews from 11 of the pictures: Argentina's The Clan, Austria's Goodnight Mommy (now in theaters), Colombia's Embrace of the Serpent, Dominican Republic's Sand Dollars, France's Mustang, Germany's Labyrinth of Lies (now in theaters!), Hungary's Son of Saul, Norway's The Wave, Portugal's Arabian Nights Volume 2, Sweden's A Pigeon Sat on a Branch, and Taiwan's The Assassin (opens Friday!). Off blog we've lined up screenings of 8 more in the next two weeks so we'll be sure to report. We'll never get to 81 but we can try.
ONE FINAL ROUND OF TRIVIA AFTER THE JUMP
Let's talk running times, previous Oscar nominees, and returning directors who've been submitted before.
Russia and Montenegro risk looooong movies
The Year's Longest Foreign Contenders...
One of these year's I will see all 80+ submissions. It won't be this year because... yeesh.
- Muhammad: The Messenger of God (Iran) - 178 minutes
- Sunstroke (Russia) - 175 minutes
- Iraqi Odyssey (Switzerland) - 162 minutes
- You Carry Me (Montenegro) - 155 minutes
- Xenia (Greece) - 134 minutes
Thailand's entry is sometimes referred to as "My Hero"The Year's Shortest Foreign Contenders...
Bless filmmakers with skill and taste for brevity. It's one of the rarest and least appreciated virtues in modern storytelling.
- The Wanted 18 (Palestine) - 75 minutes
Goat (Slovakia) - 75 minutes - A Moonless Night (Uruguay) - 78 minutes
- How To Win at Checkers (Every Time) (Thailand) - 80 minutes
- Heavenly Nomadic (Kyrgyzstan) - 81 minutes
- Eleven Minutes (Poland) - 83 minutes
Previous Nominees/Winners in the Mix
Not very many of them, just three directors this year.
One of the exciting things about the Foreign Film category is how unpredictable it is both in terms of what might get submitted and then what eventually ends up in the hallowed shortlist. It helps here, as it does everywhere, to be a "known" filmmaker. Reputations count for a lot in terms of goodwill and a high enough profile that voters might actually check your work out (and the number of people attending your screening can definitely help in this category... but we'll get to the extremely complicated voting in a later post).
Pablo Larraín, a previous nominee in this category for "No" won the Grand Jury Prize at Berlinale for "El Club". Can he win a second Foreign Film nomination?
El Club (Chile) Pablo Larraín was previously nominated in this category for his terrific 80s-flavored political activism whatsit called No (2012) starring Gael García Bernal. If you haven't seen that gem, you've really missed out! His new film is about investigations into abuse charges against priests and nuns in a Chilean beach town so one suspects it will be significantly less "fun" than No. I just hope it's not as relentlessly ugly as his pre No Chilean Oscar submission Tony Manero (2008).
Muhammad: Messenger of God (Iran) Majid Majidi is Iran's most submitted director. They've chosen his films 5 times over the years. One of them became Iran's only nominee (Children of Heaven, 1997) until Asghar Farhadi's masterpiece A Separation (2011) rolled around to win them their first Oscar. Majidi is back with a 3 hour controversial biopic on the prophet Muhammad. It's three hours long and I've heard a rumor that it's also only a part one. Seriously what is wrong with filmmakers today? If you want to make TV series just make TV series! 
Sunstroke (Russia) The director Nikita Mikhalkov won the Oscar in this category in 1994 for his family drama Burnt by the Sun. A lot of people still remember that win (pictured left) because a) people were crazy about that film which was a big arthouse hit in '95 and b) he carried his toddler daughter (who was in the movie) onto the stage. The cuteness!
The Russian selection process is often highly controversial. Some Russian industry types were angry that they chose Leviathan last year (as it was highly critical of Russia) and in 2011 when Russia sent Mikhalkov's own Burnt by the Sun II many were angry since Mikhalkov was on the selection committee) and the film had received poor reviews.
Returning Filmmakers Who've Yet to be Nominated
They've all been submitted before for Oscar recognition from their home country
Miguel Gomes. Photo by Alessandro Di Marco
Miguel Gomes (Portugal)
This singular filmmaker is most famous stateside for the film Tabu (2012) but that was not submitted for the Oscars. Before his Arabian Nights three part epic (the middle installment is submitted this year, reviewed), he was submitted for Our Beloved Month of August in 2008. Portugal holds the unfortunate honor of being the country who submits the most that has never been nominated.
Ermek on set
Ermek Tursunov (Kazakhstan)
Tursunov made the finalist list just a handful of years ago for a nearly wordless film called Kelin (2009) which turned a lot of heads and was submitted again in 2013 for The Old Man. With this third submission Stranger he's now the most submitted Kazakhstani director ever. (The country has been submitting regularly since 2006. Their only nominated film is 2007's Mongol the bio war epic directed by the Russian filmmaker Sergei Bodrov who was also nominated for Russia with Prisoner of the Mountains a decade earlier.)
Jaco
Jaco Van Dormael (Belgium)
The director of the Belgian religious satire The Brand New Testament had a huge arthouse success with his debut Toto the Hero (1991). It was submitted to the Oscars but not nominated.
Klaus Härö ... we're guessing he came close to a nomination for Mother of Mine.
Klaus Härö (Finland)
They love this 44 year old director Harö over in Finland. He has made only five features but been submitted four times: his debut Elina: As If I Wasn't There (2003), Mother of Mine (2005), Letters to Father Jacob (2009), and The Fencer (2015).
Lee Joon-ik of The King and the Clown fame
Lee Joon-ik (South Korea)
The director of this year's submission The Throne (also known as Sado) was previously submitted for another royal epic / huge hit at home The King and the Clown (2006). Despite his success in South Korea he lacks the international profile that his Korean contemporaries like Kim Ki-Duk, Bong Joon-Ho, and Lee Chang-dong have abroad.
Roy Andersson with his Golden Lion for "A Pigeon Sat on a Branch"
Roy Andersson (Sweden)
Sweden's oddest celebrated filmmaker, he who loves complicated static tableaus, vignettes, and absurd surrealism, is a festival favorite abroad but Oscar have only had two chances to know what to make of him previously. Sweden submitted his second of three early films A Swedish Love Story way back in 1970. When he returned to movie-making decades later with Songs from the Second Floor in 2000 they tried again. This is their first time risking it with A Pigeon Sat on a Branch... (reviewed). We're rooting for him and hoping we get to see his 3 original films (long before his modern fame) at some point.
Komandarev (Bulgaria), Guerra (Colombia) and Lakhdar-Hamina (Algeria)
Stephen Komandarev (Bulgaria)
Like Tursunov, he made the finalist list in 2009 with a movie called (deep breath now) The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner. He is submitted this year for his third feature Judgment which Deadline calls "stunningly timely"
Ciro Guerra (Colombia)
The director of the mesmerizing Embrace of the Serpent (reviewed) -- which we think has a great shot at a nomination -- has been submitted twice before for Wandering Shadows (2005) and The Wind Journeys (2009). With three submissions that makes him Colombia's favorite son in this category. (Colombia has yet to be nominated though they surely would have been if Oscar hadn't disqualified their 2004 submission Maria Full of Grace which was popular enough to compete in Best Actress.)
Guerra's Embrace of the Serpent opens in the US in February 2016 so yes, they're obviously gambling on getting an Oscar nomination.
Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina (Algeria)
This esteemed 85 year-old Arabic director came out of retirement for his new film Twilight of the Shadows, the film in this year's Oscar competition that's hardest to find ANY information about. He was submitted previously for Chronicles of Fire (1975) which won the Palme d'or at Cannes, Sandstorm (1982), The Last Image (1987), and Autumn: October in Algiers (1994) but none were nominated.
I haven't been able to find a legit trailer for Algeria's submission but here is a non-subtitled news report on the film with some imagery from it.