The Oscar Foreign Film Submission List - We're Almost There!
Saturday, September 26, 2015 at 10:00PM With the "official" statement still to come from the Academy (expect it in just under a week) we know the titles of 71 contenders for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar thus far. Last year 83 countries, a record, submitted. The latest titles to be named from countries still waiting on their first nomination include Jalal's Story (Bangladesh), Men Who Save the World (Malaysia), You Carry Me (Montenegro), and Heavenly Nomadic (Kyrgyzstan). Infrequently nominated countries like India (Court) and Iran (Muhammad, Messenger of God) have announced controversial chocies.
As for traditionally bigger Oscar players, we're still waiting on Italy and Spain (Spain has narrowed it down to three films) but now we have the titles from Canada (Felix & Meira) and Denmark (A War).
• Current Predictions plus all time stats/trivia
• Afghanistan through Estonia 18 official
• Ethiopia through The Netherlands 30 official
• Norway through Vietnam 23 official
Reader Comments (12)
Brasil-zil-zil-zil-zil
Speaking of Denmark: they tie on #9 in your list of this century as well, don't they? Two noms, one win, all Susanne Bier...
Oh no... I was completely wrong with my last post about Denmark. Far more nominations... Buf definitely missing from your Top Ten of this century...
Patrick -- oops. fixed now.
I've seen the Norwegian film. It's not Oscar material.
What is France thinking? They have the Palme winner and they go with a movie that could easily be disqualified? They are definitely off their game lately.
@John T: Why disqualified? I haven't heard about that, but the film sounds interesting.
Rune -- well it's a French/Turkish co-production but Oscar requires primary authorship to be the submitting country. they'll usually accept it if the director is from the country submitting it (even if it's really not that country's movie) but this one has a turkish director and turkish cast so i could see it being disqualified myself
actually i'm not sure about the director. I know she has a turkish name and speaks turkish and talks in interviews about growing up in Turkey but she lives in France so perhaps she's dual citizenship. still Oscar can be hard line about these things (though it's tough to predict when they are)
United Kingdom has at least one nomination (Hedd Wyn in 92). (I really love the attention TFE has given to the Foreign Language submissions. Thank you!)
I'm excited to see how many submissions we end up with this year. Last year's record number of 83 is unlikely but still within reach. We're actually at 71 now, according to Wikipedia, with three more countries certain to submit (Argentina, Italy, and Spain), several other frequent submitters yet to announce (Algeria, Australia, Egypt, Indonesia, Singapore, and the UK among them), and a dozen or so other possibilities who may be this year's out-of-nowhere, unannounced submission (Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Ukraine, and Vietnam).
I should add that all this speculation is due to Dzong's impressively comprehensive research. Anybody interested in the race should definitely check out his blog!
My predictions for the short list thus far are: Son of Saul, Labyrinth of Lies, Rams, The Assassin, Ixcanul, The Second Mother, Mustang, Embrace of the Serpent, and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (which I could easily see going either way, frankly).
Evan, Italy has decided to go with ‘Non Essere Cattivo’, about which I know almost nothing. "Mi Madre" sounded rather more interesting, if you ask me.
I wouldn't be surprised if Azerbaijan goes with "Bloody January," about the uprising against the Soviets with led to independence as the USSR was breaking up. I saw it at the Montréal World Film Festival, where they were really pushing the publicity for it. (It's not bad, but I'd be surprised if it made it as far as the short list.)
Another possibilities for the short list are India's "Court," which is really good.
Finally, is Austria's choice one of the most bizarre in recent years?
The Spanish Academy just announced their submission will be Loreak (Flores) , which makes it the first ever submission in the Basque language. I haven't actually seen the movie, but have heard it's a small yet moving film. Doubt they've got much of a chance, but at least they've gone with something artsy. They're notorious for submitting movies that everyone knows won't appeal to Americans at all (i.e., the year they submitted an unemployment drama over Talk to Her ). Some people were also surprised Julio Medem's Ma Ma with Penélope Cruz, which just opened in Spain a couple of weeks ago, wasn't shortlisted. She's said to be really good in it, too.