International Oscar Contenders: "A Hero" and "Bad Luck Banging on Loony Porn" join the fray

by Nathaniel R

A HERO (2021) comes from Iran's Oscar-winning champ Asghar Farhadi

Next week we have scheduled Oscar submission announcements from Denmark (we suspect Flee), Italy (we suspect Hand of God), Norway (we suspect Worst Person in the World) and Portugal (we suspect... no, we have no idea!) and on the latter we'll be hearing from Cláudio, your favourite Portuguese critic. But  let's not get ahead of ourselves. There is a lot to discuss RIGHT NOW in the International Feature Film Oscar Race as we now have seven more titles announced plus another finalist list. Which brings us to 51 movies so we're aware of over 50% of the competitive set now. News from Algeria, Belgium, India, Iran, Latvia, Palestine, Romania, and Sweden is after the jump...

ALGERIA
Algeria has chosen Djafar Gacem's Heliopolis a drama about a massacre between the French colonial power and the Algerian people in 1945. NOTE: Algeria announced this title for submission at LAST YEAR'S oscar race in this category but it must have been delayed or something because it didn't show up on the official competition list last season and here it is again.

BELGIUM
Belgium has chosen Laura Wandel's Playground (the original title translates to A World) which is about childhood bullying.

IRAN
As suspected Iran will be sending Asghar Farhadi's latest A Hero which Elisa reviewed at Cannes. Both of Iran's (only) wins were Farhadi films, the masterpiece A Separation (2011) and the merely amazing The Salesman (2016). Farhadi was also submitted for About Elly (2009) and The Past (2013) though neither were nominated. Majid Majidi is still Iran's most often submitted director, though, with six entries (most famously Children of Heaven, a nominee, and most recently Sun Children) to Farhadi's five.

LATVIA
Latvia will be sending a dark drama called The Pit about a little boy who decides to teach a neighbor girl who insulted his dead father a lesson.

PALESTINE
Palestine will be sending The Stranger a debut film from a 29 year old director named Ameer Fakher Eldin, ending the possible drama we thought might come if they also wanted to submit Israel's choice Let It Be Morning which has a cast and crew and subject matter that are heavily Palestinian. 

ROMANIA
Romania has only ever nabbed one nomination, for the documentary Collective (2020). But more often than not they send very highly acclaimed award-winning films that Oscar then ignores. This year their choice is the sex tape scandal dramedy Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn which won the Golden Bear in Berlin and which Jason reviewed at NYFF. This is Radu Jude's third Romanian Oscar submission after Aferim! (2015) and I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians (2018).

SWEDEN
Denmark (14 noms / 4 wins) recently lapped Sweden(16 noms / 3 wins) in wins but they're still behind in total nominations. Oscar voters haven't been able to get enough Danish cinema this past decade. Can Sweden beef up their own tally soon to fend off their friendly challenger? Their choice this year is a true story soccer drama called Tigers by Ronnie Sandahl.

Finally we have one new finalist list to share. 

two of India's finalists are streaming on Amazon Prime

INDIA
Oscar has long ignored Mumbai's Bollywood (and all of its lesser famous neighbors including Mollywood, Kollywood, and Tollywood). It remains shocking that India has only been nominated thrice (Mother India, Salaam Bombay, Lagaan... all wonderful films!) Some countries only have a handful or two of options each year to choose from but India is literally the busiest film market on earth... in terms of number of films made. The Film Federation of India are watching 14 films this week in Kolkata to make the Oscar selection. Curiously no news report we can find lists all 14 films. Completism forever so if you have the full list please do direct us to it. We do know six of the fourteen titles which are:

• Bridge - A film about villagers living near a perpetually flooding river.
• Chello Show - This is a Gujarati film about a little boy who is in love with the cinema.
• Mandela - Yogi Babu stars in a Tollywood satire on politics and elections
• Nayattu - A Mollywood social drama about the caste system and police injustice.
• Sardar Udham - Vicky Kaushal stars in this biopic about a martyred revolutionary (streaming on Prime)
• Sherni - Vidya Balan stars in a drama about a forest officer tasked with hunting down a man-eating tiger. (streaming on Prime)

You can see the submission charts (freshly updated) and predictions at TFE and follow along on Letterboxd here if you'd like.