The Film Experience

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.