Best International Film: Brazil's "Private Desert", Iceland's "Lamb" and more...
Wednesday, October 20, 2021 at 10:08AM Since I last piped up on the Best International Feature Film race at the upcoming Oscars, Italy released their finalist lists, and the following five countries have also picked their ponies:
BRAZIL
They're sending Aly Muritiba's Private Desert about a suspended policeman who is looking to meet his internet love. She's vanished but he finds a man who offers to connect the would-be lovers. It premiered at Venice...
ESTONIA
Their submission is the family comedy On the Water by Peeter Simm about a sensitive bullied teenager and his grandparents in Soviet Estonia.
ICELAND
Iceland will send the arthouse hit Lamb from debut director Valdimir Johansson which stars Noomi Rapace as the adoptive mother of a most unusual child.
LITHUANIA
Lithuania has chosen the documentary The Jump by Giedre Zickyte as their representative film. It's about a Lithuanian man who begged for asylum after jumping from a Soviet vessel to an American ship in the 1970s when the two boats met for talks.
MEXICO
Mexico, which won for the first time just recently with Roma (2018), has sent the brutal drama Prayers for the Stolen. about three young girls growing up in a war-torn town who are trained to survive, flee, and hide. The director Tatiana Huezo was previously submitted in 2017 for Tempestad which was a documentary about human trafficking.
NEW FINALIST LISTS !
The Norwegian Oscar-committee has revealed that they're deciding between three films: the dramedy Ninjababy by Yngvid Sve Flikke about a young illustrator who finds herself pregnant, the Cannes Best Actress winning romantic-comedy The Worst Person in the World by our favourite Joachim Trier (pictured above), and the Hotocaust drama Betrayed by Eirik Svensson. They plan to announce the winning title on October 25th. Apologies to the other two films which we haven't seen but we're obsessed with Worst Person so we need them to choose it!
Portugal is choosing between six films: David Bonneville's The Last Bath, Catarina Vasconcelos' The Metamorphosis of Birds, Gonçalvo Galvao Teles' Nothing Ever Happened, Bruno Gascon's Shadow, Sergio Graciano's The Sound That Goes Down to Earth, Artur Riberio's Terra Nova. They will announce their choice on October 29th.
We're up to 44 submissions now which means we're about halfway done with the list. Only four typically major competitors (Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Russia) have yet to announce their picks. The only other somewhat regularly nominated countries we're waiting on still are Algeria, Argentina, and Norway. We're also waiting on four countries that SHOULD be competitive but rarely have been (blame Oscar blindspots as well as their Western-European obsession) China, Hong Kong, India, and Romania.
You can see the submission charts (freshly updated) and predictions at TFE and follow along on Letterboxd here if you'd like.
Reader Comments (5)
"Lamb" just won Best Film in Sitges Film Festival
I know it was impossible, but I wish Brazil would have submitted the deeply poetic - and graphic - "Vento Seco" (Dry Wind) which is a contender already for my 10 favorite films of 2021 (I already own it on DVD, published in Germany with English Subtitles - my portuguese is basic, I learnt some when living in Angola, 23 years ago).
Warning: "Vento Seco"'s sex scenes are tremendously graphic - even more than the ones in "Stranger by the Lake" - and are inspired by the work of Tom of Finland.
Jesus -- yeah, it's almost 2 years old now so Brazil couldn't have submitted it even if they wanted to since it came out in February 2020.
I watched LAMB over the weekend. Fantastic film, and I now have seen two of the official nominees (this and I'M YOUR MAN) and am rooting for both of them.
A request though: could the team please change the photo for LAMB in this article, as it is a major spoiler for the movie?
@Travis I remember this shot from the trailer, so the LAMB team already took care of spoiling ;)
I'm seeing it this week - so glad to keep reading positive word! A24 just kills the horror game.
Greg F - that is frustrating, and you'd think the creators woudl know better. There are a whole bunch of scenes in the first act where significant camera angles are used to mantain the mystery, until the final shot of that act which is designed for a bit of shock value (unfortunately, I also had this part spoiled, as I read a part of a review that I shouldn't have).
Anyway, thanks, Nathaniel for changing the image.And I would advise everyoen to (a) see the movie, it's one of the best of the year IMO, and (b) avoid any trailers/reviews/other potential spoilers