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.