The foreign Oscar submissions keep on coming. Egypt will be submitting Sheikh Jackson, a potential crowd pleaser about an Islamic cleric undergoing an identity crisis when he flashes back to his Michael Jackson obsessed youth when Michael dies. Egypt has yet to be Oscar-nominated but who knows.
A more likely nominee on paper, given the history, is Poland's Spoor (originally called Pokot) a murder mystery directed by Agnieska Holland. The film about an animal rights activist that becomes involved in a string of mysterious crimes has been getting interestingly mixed reviews. Holland first came to international fame (and Oscar love) with her big arthouse hit and WW II drama Europa Europa (1990) and was recently in the hunt again with the foreign film nominee In Darkness (2011). You could argue that she's Oscar's second favorite Polish director (of those who kept making movies in Poland, that is) after the late legendary Andrzej Wajda who was up for the foreign film Oscar four times and eventually received an Honorary.