International Oscar Race Pt 2: Movie Stars, genres, and stats
Tuesday, January 12, 2021 at 11:30AM by Nathaniel R
We aim to maintain our title of 'the site that gives you the most when it comes to Oscar's Best International Feature Film race.' Nevertheless, even if we aren't that anymore with all the corporate sites and the indies now covering the race, at least we were influential in popularizing the coverage! That's a legacy we're proud of.
Speaking of popular. How many of the films have stars that movie-savvy folks will recognize? Let's look at the international stars with fanbases outside their home countries (and other areas of trivia interest) after the jump...
Submissions with internationally-familiar stars
Mads Mikkelsen
Mads Mikkelsen (Hannibal, Doctor Strange, Casino Royale) headlines Denmark's excellent binge-drinking drama Another Round which hopes to become his fourth time starring in an Oscar nominee in this category following After the Wedding (2006), A Royal Affair (2012), and The Hunt (2013). In addition to those nominated films he's starred in two other Danish submissions which weren't nominated: Open Hearts (2002), and Adam's Apples (2005).
Shira Haas (photographed by Eyal Nevo)
Israel's Asia stars Shira Haas who was recently Emmy nominated for her breathtaking work in the Netflix miniseries Unorthodox. She previously co-starred in Natalie Portman's In Love and Darkness, the Jessica Chastain movie The Zookeeper's Wife, the barely released Rooney Mara/ Joaquin Phoenix movie Mary Magdalene, and Foxtrot, an Israeli finalist for the 2017 Oscar (though it didn't go the distance to a nomination). All of that and she's only 25 years old.
Stellan Skarsgård
Norway's Hope stars internationally ubiquitous Golden Globe winner and Emmy nominee Stellan Skarsgård (Thor, Chernobyl, Mamma Mia, Pirates of the Caribbean). The sixty-nine year old Swede never stops working in Scandinavian cinema or in English language productions (he already has over 130 credits on IMDb). Next up: voice work for a Swedish animated movie, villain duties in Dune (2021) and then an appearance on the Disney plus series Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Gong Li
China's Leap stars the legendary Gong Li (Raise the Red Lantern, Memoirs of a Geisha, Ju Dou) who also co-starred in Disney's thwarted-blockbuster Mulan this year.
Javier Camara
Colombia's Memories of My Father (sometimes called Forgotten We'll Be) stars Spain's Javier Cámara, well known to arthouse audiences for his Almodóvar films (Bad Education, I'm So Excited, and Talk to Her)
Denis Lavant (photographed by Stéphane de Sakutin)
Ivory Coast's Night of Kings features the enduringly strange and always memorable French actor Denis Lavant (Holy Motors, Lovers on the Bridge, Beau Travail) in a key role, walking around with a pet chicken. Because of course!
Hiam Abbas
Palestine's Gaza Mon Amour co-stars Hollywood TV and film regular Hiam Abbas (Munich, Blade Runner 2049, Succession, Ramy).
Lee Byung-hun
South Korea's The Man Standing Next stars Lee Byung Hun (The Magnificent Seven, Terminator Genisys) who works regularly in English-language action cinema in addition to his Korean films and TV series.
Lars Eidinger (photographed by Stefan Klüter)
You'll also probably recognize Lars Eidinger, whether you not you know his name. He's a German actor who works regularly in French, German, and English-language films (recent high profile arthouse releases include Clouds of Sils Maria, Personal Shopper, High Life, and Proxima). He stars in My Little Sister from Switzerland. (He also co-stars in Persian Lessons which was submitted by Belarus but disqualified because the Academy felt that not enough of its artistic team was actually Belarusian)
And in the category of "possible breakouts" you might remember Ukraine's Alec Utgoff from his supporting role as "Dr Alexei" on the third season of Stranger Things or small roles in action films like San Andreas or Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit. If you do, you won't be prepared for his sexy leading-man charisma in Poland's Never Gonna Snow Again as an enigmatic massage therapist who a suburban town becomes rather obsessed with.
OKAY ON TO GENRES AND STATS...
The Mole Agent (Chile)
Submissions which are actually documentaries
7 of the 93 entries this year might also compete for nominations in Best Documentary Feature (depending on eligibility rules there, which are different). They are: Brazil's Babenco: Tell Me When I Die, Chile's The Mole Agent, Italy's Notturno, Kenya's The Letter, Luxembourg's River Tales, Romania's Collective, and Venezuela's Once Upon a Time in Venezuela.
Song Without a Name (Peru)
Submissions with LGBTQ characters in major roles
6 of the 93 films hold special interest for the LGBTQ+ community. Czech Republic's Charlatan, Finland's Tove, France's Deux, Peru's Song Without a Name, and Switzerland's My Little Sister all have queer characters as leads or secondary leads. We'd also argue that Poland's Never Gonna Show Again qualifies since the protagonist's sexuality (like so much else about him) is presented as an enigma.
Impetigore (Indonesia)
Submissions of uncommon genres for this particular Oscar category
Malaysia's Soul and Indonesia's Impetigore are both horror movies. Egypt's When We're Born is the lone musical among the submissions. There is occassionally an animated title in the mix but no animated films were submitted this year.
The Auschwitz Report (Slovakia)
Submissions which deal with World War II
World War II was once the easily dominant subgenre for this category. That's no longer true as it recedes further into history. Only 2 of the 93 films are directly about World War II -- which we believe to be an all time low, numerically speaking, for this category -- and both are more specifically about the Holocaust; Serbia's Dara in Jasenovac and Slovakia's The Auschwitz Report take place in concentration camps. War trauma is all over many of the other films, though they're dealing with different wars, massacres, civilian suppression and other violent tragedies.
Extra-Curricular (Croatia)
Submissions which deal with terrorism
5 of the 93 films? There could be others we aren't aware of, plot-wise. Georgia's Beginning is about a Jehovah Witness community who are attacked by locals, first with arson and then more personal targeted attacks. Croatia's Extra-Curricular is about a man taking his daughter's high school class hostage with a rifle, Germany's And Tomorrow the Entire World is about antifa youth investigating local Neo-Nazis. Finally, Italy's documentary Notturno and Lebanon's drama Broken Keys both deal with terrorism in the Middle East.
Scales (Saudi Arabia)
10 Shortest Films
- Saudi Arabia's Scales - 74 minutes
- Brazil's Babenco: Tell Me When I Die - 75 minutes
- Albania's Open Door - 78 minutes
- Bolivia's Chaco - 80 minutes
- Slovenia's Stories from the Chestnut Woods - 81 minutes
- Costa Rica's Land of Ashes - 82 minutes
- Luxembourg's River Tales (in Spanish) - 82 minutes
- Malaysia's Soul - 83 minutes
- [TIE] Chile's The Mole Agent and Kenya's The Letter - 84 minutes
What to make of the fact that almost half of the shortest list is Spanish-language features?
A Sun (Taiwan)
10 Longest Films
- Taiwan's A Sun - 2 hours and 36 minutes
- Spain's The Endless Trench - 2 hours and 27 minutes
- Cameroon's The Fisherman's Diary - 2 hours and 23 minutes
- Japan's True Mothers - 2 hours and 20 minutes
- Pakistan's Circus of Life - 2 hours and 18 minutes
- Kazakshtan's The Crying Steppe - 2 hours and 17 minutese
- [TIE] Colombia's Forgotten We'll Be and Nigeria's The Milkmaid - 2 hours and 16 minutes
- [TIE] Hong Kong's Better Days and China's Leap - 2 hours and 15 minutes
What to make of the fact that more than half of the longest movies list is from Asian countries?
WE'LL DISCUSS THE DIRECTORS TOMORROW.
SEE THE PREDICTIONS HERE AND THE SUBMISSION CHARTS HERE.
Reader Comments (25)
Besides Chile's, Costa Rica's and Bolivia's movies in the 10 shortest films, what other film is in Spanish?
Thanks for the assiduous classification of films although like many of you here who love international films, I find film genre reductive because a lot of films that did not merit English subtitles as well as those which do get international distribution playfully experiment with genre to tell cinematic stories. Having said this, the one genre I am more interested is documentaries. Looking forward to seeing Collective and Notturno.
Aside from Eidinger in Switzerland's My Little Sister, Nina Hoss and Marthe Keller are also in the film.
Actressexuals might be even more familiar with Eidinger’s co-star, My Little Sister herself, Nina Hoss (Homeland, Barbara, Phoenix, The Audition).
I hope that voters are not put off by the long run times of both A Sun and The Endless Trench. Both are memorable and deserve to be on the shortlist.
Pedro -- Luxembourg's doc is also in Spanish
"I hope that voters are not put off by the long run times of both A Sun and The Endless Trench". Remember when the, like 7-8 hour WAR AND PEACE won in the 60. (Neither do I. I was too young, but you get my point.) Something like that seems impossible, and it's hard to imagine Lav Diaz or other long-form filmmakers getting a fair shot with the Academy. Too bad, of course. It would be amazing had JEANNE DIELMAN won the Oscar for it's year.
Asian movies are usually endless.
Dan -- i dunno about "fair shot". To me if you wanna make a movie thats 8 hours long... that's a tv miniseries. Maybe don't expect to get film awards? There are also young directors out there that want to be longwinded too but most festival programmers (if they're being honest) will tell you that if you want to get into festivals you should keep the length reasonable if you're not famous yet. There are only so many hours in a day and festivals have to sample hundreds upon hundreds of movies before making their selections so you have a better shot if you can tell a story succinctly and with great verve... this is also why i wonder about filmmakers who have weak opening scenes or who go for "slow burn" right out of the gate in their careers. It's very hard to pull off well and if you're not a famous auteur or 1000% confident it can come off as "is this film worth watching?"
that was sort of off topic but i have "feelings" about lengthy running times. I just watched a three hour movie and enjoyed it so i'm not allergic to them... i just think that storytellers need to be smart about the length of their story.
working stiff -- i thought about including her. maybe i should have but i was trying to list people who either work outside of their home country with some frequency (thus Eidingr) or whose films often travel internationally due to their fame (like Gong Li)
Time for vindicating once more how Javier Cámara probably should be an Oscar nominee (and Globe Comedy nominee) by now.
- Talk to Her
- Bad Education
- I'm so excited (Globe Comedy/Musical)
I like him more than the other internationally famous spaniard called Javier (who is an amazing actor as well)
@ Nathaniel
That’s what I figured, but I adore her (him not so much), so I had to mention it. ;-)
@Nathaniel: thanks! Would like to watch it.
What is the most likely LGBT movie to be nominated since it seems like every year bowl there is at least one that makes it?
There's the german actress Barbara Sukowa in french submission Deux, who at least in Europe is well known for her collaboration with Fassbinder and her lead in Hannah Arendt + many more great movies...She was also in Gloria Bell with Julianne Moore and in Atomic Blonde with Charleze Theron and in TV series Hunters just recently... although the roles in US film have been quite small till now, she's been in other french movies too.
Have seen 41 this year's submissions so far. The best is still Tunis, followed by Taiwan, Denmark, Latvia, Russia, Hong Kong, Iran, France, Lesotho and Norway. Exceptionally stong year for african and asian movies.
Just to mention - in Norwegian "Hope" there were LGBTQ charaters too, although not in a bigger role.
Brazil's submitted documentary is about Hector Babenco,Academy award nominee director for Kiss of the Spider Woman. His titles include Pixote and Ironweed among others.
"What to make of the fact that almost half of the shortest list is Spanish-language features?"
as someone who's spent years trying [unsuccessfully] to learn spanish i suspect it's because it's spoken muy rápido
@par LOL I don't think that's true. Love the fact you're interested in learning Spanish.
Nathaniel, you forgot to mention Erica Rivas in "Submissions with internationally-familiar stars". Do you remember "Bridezilla" in Wild Tales?. She is the main star in the argentine submission "The Sleepwalkers".
Including Lars Eidinger but not Nina Hoss in this article is a bizarre choice-he’s not really known among cinephiles the way she is.
Nathaniel, your coverage of international cinema is really appreciated. There are not a lot of websites that cover the rich world of international cinema which puzzles me considering the abundance of stories and performances.
Besides, Nathaniel, just have to add, that for me this is still the best place for everything related Oscar's International Films! Thank you for covering it more deeply than any of the other sites I know! And now that you have removed Sweden from your top picks, there still only Poland, that I think does not have a chance (although it does still linger on my mind, maybe it's the same for the academy, when they are voting), but the rest of your picks can really be contenders. You are missing out on Tunis and Taiwan though. I think that not only these 2 are really really good films, but the buzz on them is building too and not do they have a chance to be part of the long list, but even in the TOP5 nominations. Latvia is in their wheelhouse too and can surprise this year. Have not yet seen Armenia, but as the film was produced by Oscar Best Film "Green Book" writer and producer, it has good reviews, that might snug in the long list. Also I haven't seen Colombia's Memories on my father, that is building a strong buzz lately. And Ireland is entering the talks. You deleted Serbia, the "other" concentration camp movie, but that might still be a possibility. I understand, that you can't put half the list in your top picks, otherwise, what's the point, but my point is, that your page IS the best of everything related to this category!
Thank you, as always, for your coverage of the International Feature race. You were the first to get me interested in them!
Like some others, I've never heard of Lars Eidinger....but you've left out 4-time Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe. He is interviewed for Brazil's excruciating documentary, which he also associate-produced.
Online film festivals have made it easy to see more movies this year. I've seen 44 of the submissions and have plans to see 20 more over the course of the next month. The best is Bosnia (which you have on the list, and which will probably win) but I'm surprised to report that my #2 is the unassuming film from Kosovo. It's a well-made dark horse thriller in German, everyone who sees it seems to enjoy it, and I'm wondering if it will sneak in.
You mention the 7 documentaries and 2 horror films, but you've left out the best genre that Oscar hates- comedies. There's only "pure" comedy film in the race this year- Morocco's "The Unknown Saint", plus four comedy-dramas from Croatia, Denmark, Greece and Uruguay.....Although it's true that comedy doesn't always translate well, this is a ridiculously low number!
Thanks again for all your hard work!
I watched A Sun yesterday, and no, it doesn't justify the length, easily 40 minutes extras.
It is great to see Anne Dorval from Xavier Dolan's fame play a real character, down to earth and so touching in Canada's entry.
Thank you again for your coverage of the FLF category!
By the way, there is also John Hannah in Slovakia's entry "The Auschwitz report"