If you've been reading TFE for any length of time, you already know we're obsessive about Oscar's Foreign Language Film race, last year retitled to Best International Feature Film. Normally we've long since begun talking about the submission list, but 2020 remains an unruly unusual beast. But we do have two pieces of news to share regarding our favourite non-actress based category.
First, we've neglected to mention that Oscar's longer-than-usual release eligibility period has also affected Best International Film...
That's a category that doesn't actually follow the January 1st to December 31st calendar to begin with in a normal year. Films that are submitted to represent a country in this category generally have to be released in that country between October 1st of the previous year to September 30th of the year of Oscar submission. For the 93rd Academy Awards, that period has been extended. The eligibility period will be October 1st, 2019 through December 31st, 2020.
Even though each country now has three additional months of releases to consider -- so we'll be hearing the official list much later than usual -- one country has already selected.
Poland will be sending Never Gonna Snow Again, a comedy about a masseur who develops a cult following that is premiering at the Venice Film Festival on September 6th. Ukranian British actor Alec Utgoff (Stranger Things, Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation), who generally works in English language cinema, headlines. It's from the female director Malgorzata Szumowska (The Other Lamb, Elles) here co-directing for the first time with her frequent collaborator Michal Englert, who is also the film's co-writer and cinematographer. This is the 5th time Poland has submitted a film directed by a woman to the Oscars. The four previous female-helmed submissions were: Copernicus (1973, co-directed by Ewa Petelska and her husband Czeslaw Petelski), The Welts (2004, Magdalena Piekorz), In Darkness (2011, Agnieszka Holland), and Spoor (2017, Agnieszka Holland).
Here's the teaser...
POLAND'S OSCAR STATS
Submitting since 1963
52 Total Submissions
12 Nominations
1 Win
Roman Polanski's "Knife in Water" was Poland's first submission and their first nomination
- Knife in the Water (Polanski, 1963)
- Pharaoh (Kawalerowicz, 1966)
- The Deluge (Hoffman, 1974)
- The Promised Land (Wajda, 1975)
- Nights and Days (Antczak, 1976)
- The Maids of Wilko (Wajda, 1979)
- Man of Iron (Wajda, 1981)
- Katyn (Wajda, 2007)
- In Darkness (Holland, 2011)
- Ida (Pawlikowski, 2014) WINNER
- Cold War (Pawlikowski, 2018)
- Corpus Christi (Komasa, 2019)
Most frequently submitted directors
- Andrzej Wajda (9 submissions, 4 nominated films, Wajda also received an Honorary Oscar)
- Jerzy Kawalerowicz (3 submissions, 1 nominated film)
- Krzysztof Kieślowki (3 submissions, 0 nominated films, Kieślowski was also nominated for Best Director/Screenplay for Three Colors Red, which was not eligible for this category)
- Krzysztof Zanussi (3 submissions, 0 nominated films)
- Pawel Pawlikowski (2 submissions, 2 nominated films, 1 winning film, and Pawlikowski was also nominated for Best Director once)
- Agnieskza Holland (2 submissions, 1 nominated film)
- [TIE] Witold Leszczyński, Kazimierz Kutz, Feliks Falk (2 submissions, 0 nominated films)
Most Oscar-honored Polish artists
Spielberg with his trusted cinematographer Janusz Kaminski
- Janusz Kamiński, Cinematographer (6 nominations, 2 wins)
- Roman Polanski, Director (5 nominations across 3 categories, 1 win for Best Director, plus a Foreign Film nomination)
- [TIE] Anton Grot, Art Director and Rudolph Maté, Cinematographer (5 nominations each)
- Bronislaw Kaper, Composer (4 nominations, 1 win)
- Anna B Sheppard, Costume Designer (3 nominations)
- [TIE] Lukasz Zal, Cinematographer and Kryzsztof Kieslowki (2 nominations each)
- Zbigniew Rybczyńsky (1 nomination and win for animated short)
- Pawel Pawlikowski, Director (1 nomination for Best Director, plus a Best Foreign Film win out of 2 Foreign film nominations)
- Agnieska Holland, Director (1 nomination for Screenplay, plus two Foreign Film nominations... one from West Germany)
And a special honorary case. Did you know that Samuel Goldwyn, of Old Hollywood production fame, was born in Poland? He produced silent classics like Tonight or Never and Ben-Hur, and later sound classics like Ball of Fire, The Best Years of Our Lives, The Little Foxes, and Wuthering Heights among many more. He received 3 Honorary prizes from the Academy (two Thalbergs and one Jean Hersholt)