by Nathaniel R
Our first 10 official contenders for Best Foreign Language Film for the Oscars have been revealed. Any of the links will take you to the foreign submission charts where you can read more. They are:
- Belarus Crystal Swan
- Belgium Girl (CANNES CAMERA D'OR)
- Estonia Take it Or Leave It
- Japan Shoplifters (CANNES PALME D'OR)
- Lithuania Wonderful Losers
- Romania's "I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians"
- Slovakia The Interpreter
- Switzerland El Dorado
- Turkey The Wild Pear Tree
- UK I Am Not a Witch (BAFTA OUTSTANDING DEBUT)
RANDOM NOTES
Lithuania and Switzerland have opted for documentaries (which have only extremely rarely been nominated in this category). The longest of the titles is Turkey's entry (over 3 hours) because Nuri Bilge Ceylan can't help himself. His movies are always punishingly long.
Director Rungano Nyoni (left) and Producer Emily Morgan (right) won BAFTAs for I Am Not A Witch earlier this year.FEMALE DIRECTORS
Overseas female directors are more commonly working than they are in the US. People say otherwise online sometimes -- probably due to righteous political fire -- but they haven't been studying foreign film Oscar submissions for the past 18 Oscar seasons as we have. There are always multiple female directors represented in the 70-90 film list. Can you imagine a US committee selecting a female-directed film if they could only honor ONE film to represent everything made in the country? (I thought not. We still have a long way to go in Hollywood) So far the list is 30% female directors (Belarus, Estonia, and UK). If you're curious about this topic we shared a bunch of trivia regarding female Best Foreign Film directors a couple of years back.
RETURNING DIRECTORS
This is the fifth time Turkey has submitted their most critically beloved director but Oscar hasn't yet gone for any of his films (Ceylan's previously selected films: Distant, Three Monkeys (which made the Academy's 9 wide finalist list but was not nominated), Once Upon a Time in Anatolia , and Winter Sleep). This is the second time Romania has selected Radu Jude (previously submitted for Aferim!)
FRONTRUNNERS?
So far buzz favors Roma for Mexico, Capernaum for Lebanon, and Cold War from Poland, but none of those films are "officially" selected to compete yet by their home countries.