Oscar's Foreign Film Race Pt 1: All 81 Trailers
Thursday, October 8, 2015 at 11:15PM 
Pt 1 Everything You Wanted to Know About the Foreign Language Film Category... *But Were Afraid to Ask
Here are all the trailers in one place. We're helpful that way (and we've updating this when we find better footage). Tis the season of wondering what the Academy's Foreign Language Film committees might take a shine to. We're sprucing up the Official Submission Charts right now to make them cleaner with the full list but until then here are all the trailers for your viewing pleasure.
Which of these 81 films are you eager to see? Which do you think Oscar might also warm to?
AFGHANISTAN "Utopia"
Utopia (ARMANSHAHR) OFFICIAL TRAILER from Worldfilm Production on Vimeo.
ALBANIA "Bota"
Bota - SFIFF58 Trailer from San Francisco Film Society on Vimeo.
ALGERIA "Twilight of Shadows"
This is not the trailer but the best we could find: a news report with footage on the film. Sadly no subtitles...
ARGENTINA "The Clan"
AUSTRALIA "Arrows of the Thunder Dragon"
AUSTRIA "Goodnight Mommy"
BANGLADESH "Jalal's Story"
BELGIUM "The Brand New Testament"
BOSNIA "Our Everyday Life"
BRAZIL "The Second Mother"
BULGARIA "Judgement"
CAMBODIA "The Last Reel"
CANADA "Felix & Meira"
CHILE "El Club"
CHINA "Go Away Mr Tumor"
COLOMBIA "Embrace of the Serpent"
COSTA RICA "Presos"
CROATIA "The High Sun"
CZECH REPUBLIC "Home Care"
DENMARK "A War"
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC "Sand Dollars"
ESTONIA "1944"
ETHIOPIA "Lamb"
FINLAND "Fencer"
FRANCE "Mustang"
GEORGIA "Moira"
GERMANY "Labyrinth of Lies"
GREECE "Xenia"
GUATEMALA " Ixcanul"
HONG KONG "To the Fore"
HUNGARY "Son of Saul"
ICELAND "Rams"
INDIA "Court"
IRAN "Mohammed: Messenger of God"
IRAQ "Memories on Stone"
IRELAND "Viva"
(okay all trailers except this one -- let me know if you can find.)
ISRAEL "Baba Joon"
ITALY "Non Esserre Cattivo"
IVORY COAST "Run"
JAPAN "100 Yen Love"
JORDAN "Theeb"
KAZAKHSTAN "Stranger"
KOSOVO "Babai"
KYRGYSZTAN "Heavenly Nomadic"
Heavenly Nomadic Trailer 720p from Pluto Film on Vimeo.
LATVIA "Modris"
LEBANON "Void"
LITHUANIA "The Summer of Sangaille"
The Summer of Sangaile - Trailer from MSP Film Society on Vimeo.
LUXEMBOURG "Baby (A)Lone"
Baby(a)lone - la bande annonce avec sous-titres ENG-SD from Film Fund Luxembourg on Vimeo.
MACEDONIA "Honey Night"
MALAYSIA "Men Who Save the World"
MEXICO "600 Miles"
MONTENEGRO "You Carrry Me"
MOROCCO "Aida"
NEPAL "Talakjung vs Tulke"
THE NETHERLANDS "Paradise Suite"
THE PARADISE SUITE International Trailer from PRPL on Vimeo.
NORWAY "The Wave"
PAKISTAN "Moor"
PALESTINE "The Wanted 18"
PARAGUAY "Cloudy Times"
PERU "NN"
PHILIPPINES "Heneral Luna"
POLAND "11 Minutes"
PORTUGAL "Arabian Nights: Volume 2 - The Desolate Ones"
ROMANA "Aferim"
RUSSIA "Sunstroke"
SERBIA "Enclave"
SINGAPORE "7 Letters"
SLOVAKIA "Goat"
SLOVENIA "The Tree"
SOUTH AFRICA "The Two of Us"
SOUTH KOREA "The Throne"
SPAIN "Loreak (Flowers)"
Loreak - Trailer VOSE from Irusoin on Vimeo.
SWEDEN "A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence"
SWITZERLAND "Iraqi Odyssey"
Iraqi Odyssey Trailer ENGLISH from Iraqi Odyssey on Vimeo.
TAIWAN "The Assassin"
THAILAND "How to Win at Checkers"
TURKEY "Sivas"
UNITED KINGDOM "Under Milk Wood"
URUGUAY "A Moonless Night"
VENEZUELA "Gone with the River"
Lo que lleva el río (Gone with the river) from mario crespo.filmaker.cubano on Vimeo.
VIETNAM "Jackpot"
Reader Comments (21)
Wow. Such a lot of work behind this, I'm sure. Thanks Nathaniel.
I just saw Goodnight Mommy, and I can't BELIEVE that they're submitting that. Bold choice. I didn't love it, but I respect them for selecting so far outside of the box.
What an extraordinary post, providing all of these trailers - Thanks so much!
I have heard about a few of these, "Son of Saul", "Mustang", and in particular, "The Second Mother". Brazil's entry - The Second Mother is getting a lot of press and high critical praise for the performance of Regina Case. That's the one I'm looking forward to seeing the most.
Nathaniel you are to be commended for taking such time and care about International cinema.
No wonder you have readers in so many different countries.
Very happy for the South America choices... Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Colombia have very strong players, hope that at least one of them make the final cut.
India's nomination is a solid one in many years. It is NYT Critic's pick: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/15/movies/review-court-is-chaitanya-tamhanes-unsparing-look-at-justice-in-india.html?_r=0
I hope it finds the marketing budget to campaign.
What LadyEdith said. I look forward to digging into some of these.
FWIT, I have seen two of these:
Iceland's RAMS is a quirky little tale that I could see getting a nomination, or at least on the shortlist, mainly because it is good, but it revolves around two elderly white males and their issues, which could resonate with the Academy
Jordan's THEEB is an interesting narrative, and well-made, but I don't think it quite has the factors needed to get nominated. It's more of a "good try, country that doesn't have a consistently strong film culture" film.
I am Australian, and I have never heard of the film submitted by us. The trailer even says it was released in April this year. It certainly hasn't been submitted for our annual film awards (the AACTAs). Any other Aussies know anything about it? (Glenn?)
Travis C - I'm Australian and was surprised to see 'Arrows of the Thunder Dragon' on this list, too. Then I remembered reading about it last year. It stuck in my memory because it is a co-pro with Bhutan and has a Buddhist connection, and I'm a Buddhist (you can see the article here: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/movies/thunder-from-down-under-and-bhutan-20130828-2sqo7.html).
The film screened at the CineFestOz fest in WA but had event screenings with filmmaker Q&As in four cities, rather than a full release. So the release was too limited to qualify it for the AACTA Awards. No idea why they're calling it a 'Director's Cut'.
It doesn't appear to be on DVD yet and the director told IF today they 'are working on plans for a re-release to capitalise on the Oscar attention'. Good luck to them!
I've seen Sweden, Austria, Brazil, Portugal, Hungary, and Germany and so far, nothing compares to Son of Saul. Not even the lauded Arabian Nights trilogy or the very sweet Second Mother.
Among the remaining, I'm most excited for Chile, Colombia, and Guatemala.
I love this Oscar category though-- so many nations (Chile, Georgia, and Romania come to mind) have exciting national cinemas right now for the first time in their history.
Wow! This is insane. Thank you so much for putting them all together.
I watched and loved the HK submission "To The Fore" despite the critics weren't really giving it a very positive review. The trailer you show for this movie is not really the official trailer but kind of a teaser. Didn't really tell us about the movie much. If you like to see a more complete trailer, here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wRV0ytA5sE
Thanks for putting that up!
Just a small mistake: The trailer for Peru is the same than Paraguay.
Many countries still need to get their first nomination in this category. So go Colombia, Romania, Thailand, Turkey, South Korea, Portugal, Morocco, Lebanon !
Mike in Canada...I certainly agree with you about Goodnight Mommy!
What happened with China? It seemed that they were submitting Wolf Totem (which I specifically saw because of that), and now they're submitting Go Away Mr. Tumor (which I didn't see at the Montréal World Film Festival).
Again I say...don't underestimate Court, the Indian film. It's really, really good.
PJ.. thanks i updated.
Bill the Bear -- good question. i have no idea what happened there.
Congratulations Nat on your incredibly-detailed reports. TFE is THE place of reference for the Foreign Language category!
Thank you for this Nat! I've been making it my project since last year to watch as many of the submissions as possible (last year I saw 13, including the five that were nominated, which I know isn't much, but among the available festivals and special screening in Mexico, they were the ones I could find).
From this year, I've seen 3 so far. Mustang (France), Theeb (Jordan) and Sivas (Turkey), all terrific in their own way. I'm hoping to see a few more at the Morelia Film Festival coming up.
It was pointed out to me by a friend that I have also seen Greece's entry, XENIA. Quite a good film, and I could see the board being daring and nominating/short-listing it. (It's not a forgettable film plot-wise, it's just that I didn't think about it being their submission given I saw it a year ago, and the title is pretty generic.)
Nathaniel & Bill the Bear, there was no official explanation as to why the last minute switch of the China submission, despite it's been long reported Wolf Totem was the chosen one. Unofficial speculation was that last year China already submitted another co-production with France (The Nightingale), so to avoid repetition they didn't choose Wolf Totem. Weird is that they actually have another movie by award-winning director Jia Zhangke -- Mountains May Depart that they can submit. It's such a surprise they decided to go with the lighthearted Mr. Tumor.
Great work
here is an alternative trailer for the Greek entry "Xenia" This one is in Greek with english subtitles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaZ3mOod9hk
and not dubbed in spanish as the one you list
Here's a sort of (?) trailer for Twilight of Shadows. It has a lot of footage from the trailer at least. Some kind of news report on it. Apparently Vangelis did the music?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p3nSvCM_0E
thanks to everyone's suggestions this post is now better with updated or replacement trailers -- now we only have one film that remains a total trailer/footage mystery (VIVA) which is weird since there are reviews of it