Six More Foreign Film Oscar Contenders

by Nathaniel R

We're now up to 36 entries for Best Foreign Language Film, so  over one-third of the way to the full list. Of the six latest announcements The Heiresses has had the arguably highest profile at festivals but the Russian entry is the most "typically Oscar-like" in subject matter, though that thankfully matters less than it once did, even in the foreign category. 

• The Great Mystical Circus Brazil
  A century in the life of a family of circus owners. This is the 7th time Brazil has submitted a film by Carlos Diegues. He's their most frequently submitted director but none of his submitted films have been nominated. 
• Graves Without a Name Cambodia
  Rithy Panh created Cambodia's only Oscar nominee (the brilliant documentary The Missing Picture). This is another doc on the same topic: the Kmer Rouge and genocide
• Polyxeni Greece 
  The plot sounds intriguing. A young Greek orphan with a lust for life, is adopted and raised by a wealthy Greek-Turkish couple, unaware that people are plotting and after her large inheritance. Greece used to automatically submit the winner of the Thessaloniki Film Festival but those awards have since been abolished. The new big prizes for Greek films are the Hellenic Film Awards (often referred to as "the Iris" like we call the Academy Awards "Oscar"). They began in 2010 with Dogtooth as their first winner but winning the Iris (which Polyxeni did) doesn't automatically get you the Oscar submission since the submission is now decided by a committee. 
• Sunset Hungary
  It's László Nemes' follow up to his Oscar winning debut Son of Saul. He's gone further back in time from World War II in the previous picture to just before World War I for this story of a young woman who wants to be a milliner in a hat shop previously owned by her parents.
• The Heiresses Paraguay 
  Lesbian drama about a formerly wealthy woman restarting her life after her longtime partner is imprisoned. Among its several festival prizes is the promising Best Actress win at Berlinale.
• Sobibor  - Russia 
  A true story of a prisoner uprising at an extermination camp in Russia during World War II.

Related:
FOREIGN FILM PREDICTIONS
FOREIGN FILM SUBMISSION CHARTS

Comments

[Rod]

Thanks!! I'm surprised with Russia's submission.

The Resistance Banker - Netherlands - is now out on Netflix. It's pretty good.
Euthanizer - Finland - is on iTunes.
Gutland - Luxembourg - is on Amazon.
The Family - Venezuela - is on iTunes. Great film!!

Has any other film been released yet?

[CharlieG]

Excited to see The Heiresses this weekend! DC peeps ... it's at AFI this weekend.

[V.]

Brazil always with the weird choices. We should've gone with Loveling or maybe Rust.

[/3rtful]

I used to like this category but have less enthusiasm for it with the recent ceremonies.

[TOM]

Not sure if it’s foreign-but where’s that Charlotte Rampling film entitled ‘Hanna?’ Thought she won a Best Actress award last year, but the film was moved to 2018. Was that ever released?

[dzong2]

CharlieG.....Here in DC, "Birds of Passage" (Colombia) is also playing at the AFI Film Festival in DC this weekend. We'll be going to the Saturday night show if the hurricane doesn't interfere!

[ca]

Portugal's selected film is João Botelho's PEREGRINAÇÃO.

[Harmodio]

Panama has selected the documentary Ruben Blades Is Not My Name as the film that represented them at the Oscars. The documentary is directed by Abner Benaim who directed Invasion that represented Panama at the Oscars a few years ago.

[John]

Taiwan has chosen "The Great Buddha+" over the the film that beat it at last year's Golden Horse awards, "The Bold, The Corrupt and the Beautiful." I would say it's probably the right choice. B/C/B has a labyrinthine plot that would probably be even harder to understand in translation, and really requires some knowledge of the real-life events that it's loosely based on. Great Buddha is a simpler and more universal story (and has a great hook with its B&W/color setup).