International Oscar Race Pt 1 - 93 Films This Year. It's List Time!

by Nathaniel R

It's that lovely too brief moment in the year when we have the pretty-much official list for Best International Film before they are savagely narrowed to 15 films on December 21st and then further reduced for the actual nominations in . It is possible that a couple will be disqualified of course (as that happens from time to time and there are two titles that might be if IMDb is correct that they're fully in English. This year there are 93 submissions (full charts / letterboxd list / predictions) so let's break it down for some stats and trivia for fun, shall we?

The Dozen Highest Profile Submissions

Please do not mistake this list for Finalist predictions! Armchair pundits often make the mistake of assuming that high-profile means you'll be nominated but you never know what the individual voters and the Executive Committee might like. History is full of high profile titles that Oscar rejected in this category...

Nevertheless these 12 films do have the arguable advantage of going into the race with voters at least aware of their existence and, therefore, probably more eager to check them out:

• Colombia MEMORIA (Famous auteur + movie star)
• Denmark FLEE (Festival prizes)
• Finland's COMPARTMENT NO 6 (Festival prizes)
• France's TITANE (Palme D'Or winner)
• Germany's I'M YOUR MAN (Festival prizes + British star)
• Iceland's LAMB (Movie star + general theatrical release)
• Iran's A HERO (Festival hit+ Oscar-loved director)
• Italy's THE HAND OF GOD (Festival prizes + Oscar-loved director)
• Japan's DRIVE MY CAR (Festival prizes)
• Kosovo's HIVE  (Sundance winner)
• Norway's THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD (Festival prizes)
• Romania's BAD LUCK BANGING OR LOONY PORN (Golden Bear winner)

THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD

Voting in this category has changed frequently over the years but currently each participating member is assigned to one of five groups. Each group has about 18 movies to see and they have to see two/thirds of those (within their group) to vote. But after they've done that they're free to watch movies they weren't assigned as well and vote on those too. And that, theoretically, is where a high profile comes in handy. If you're naturally drawn to a particular film but it's not in your assigned group your affinity for it -- in whatever way -- could still play in to the voting.

I haven't yet seen all of those 12 films but my favourite at this point is easily The Worst Person in the World. Yours?

THE GRAVEDIGGER'S WIFE

First time submitting
Somalia is the only newbie to the Oscar race. They submitted The Gravedigger's Wife about a happily married couple's struggles once the wife falls ill.

Second time submitting
Two other countries in the mix this year have only submitted once before. Malawi is trying again with Fatsani a Tale of Survival and Haiti with Freda.

Submissions which are actually documentaries

3 of the 93 entries this year might also compete for nominations in Best Documentary Feature depending on eligibility and submission rules there, which are different. Last year had a record high for doc submissions but not this time. We have only:

• Denmark's Flee
• Portugal's The Metamorphosis of Birds
• United Kingdom's Dying to Divorce. 
• .... meanwhile Slovakia's excellent 107 Mothers has a documentary-like feel (and the director usually makes documentaries) even though it is a narrative feature.

Submissions with LGBTQ characters / themes

 GREAT FREEDOM
While there might be more queer element than we're unaware of before seeing the films, this year it appears that only 5 of the 93 submissions hold special interest for the LGBTQ+ community

• Austria's Great Freedom is about a gay man who goes from concentration camps to prison in post-war Germany. 
• Brazil's Private Desert is about a cop searching for his online love in real life. 
• Denmark's Flee (again) is a animated interview film with a gay Afghani who is about to marry his boyfriend in Denmark. 
• Finland's Compartment No 6 has a lesbian protagonist
• French provocation Titane features lesbian sex, gender-bending, and male homoeroticism, too. 

HORRORS!

HOLY BEASTS

 In surprising news there are 6 titles that have horror or horror/thriller elements this time around:

• Argentina's The Intruder is a thriller
• Dominican Republic's Holy Beasts has vampirism
• France's Titane is basically all the genres including body horror and serial-killing
• Hungary's Post-Mortem has ghosts
• Iceland's Lamb is definitely horror-adjacent
• Thailand's Medium is about possession and evil spirits 

 Submissions which deal with World War II 

HELIOPOLIS
World War II was once the easily dominant subgenre for this category but in the past decade this is no longer true as the war recedes in history. This year we believe only 3 of the 93 films directly involve World War II but all of them take place after the war.

• Algeria's Heliopolis
• Austria's Great Freedom
• Lithuania's Isaac 

10 Shortest Films
We love a brief runtime!

EUROPA

1. Belgium's Playground (72 minutes)
2. [TIE] India's Pebbles,  Iraq's Europa, and Paraguay's Nothing but the Sun (75 minutes each)
5. Azerbaijan's The Island Within (79 minutes)
6. [TIE] Australia's When Pomegranates Howl, Singapore's Precious is the Night, United Kingdom's Dying to Divorce, and Uruguay's Broken Glass Theory (80 minutes each)
10. [TIE] Malaysia's Hail, Driver! and Somalia's The Gravedigger's Wife (82 minutes each) 

Runners ups: Kosovo's Hive is 84 minutes long while Bolivia's The Great Movement and Switzerland's Olga just missed this list being 85 minutes long.

Honorable mention: Cambodia's White Building,  Denmark's Flee,  Dominican Republic's Holy Beasts, Georgia's Brighton 4th, Kazakhstan's Yellow Cat, North Macedonia's Sisterhood, The Netherland's Do Not Hesitate, Slovenia's Sanremo, and Venezuela's The Inner Glow are all the perfect movie length of 90 minutes!

10 Longest Films
Make sure you've peed first.

1. Japan's Drive My Car (179 minutes)
2. Poland's Leave No Traces (160 minutes)
3. Turkey's Commitment Hasan (147 minutes)
4. Colombia's Memoria (136 minutes)
5. Czech Republic's Zatopek (131 minutes)
6. [TIE] Italy's The Hand of God and Thailand's The Medium (130 minutes each)
8. Taiwan's The Falls (129 minutes)
9. Vietnam's Dad I'm Sorry (128 minutes)
10. [TIE] Iran's A Hero and Norway's The Worst Person in the World (127 minutes each)

Runner up: Brazil's Private Desert at 125 minutes. We are happy to report that the majority of the submissions this year are under 2 hours.

No Submission This Year
The biggest surprise this time for a country sitting the race out is The Philippines since they've been submitting since the 1950s and annually without fail since 1995. Other countries which aren't involved this year but have submitted in the past include Afghanistan, Cuba, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, Ivory Coast, Mongolia, New Zealand, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, and Yemen. The three countries that submitted for the first time last year (Lesotho, Sudan, Suriname) all sat this year out.

WE'LL DISCUSS THE DIRECTORS AND MOVIE STARS INVOLVED SOON
PREDICTIONS | ALL 93 FILMS ON THE SUBMISSION CHARTS |  LETTERBOXD

Comments

[MrW]

I have been singing the praises of Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn ever since I saw it. I know it has absolutely zero chance of getting nominated (I would be stunned if it even makes the shortlist), but it's such a wild and fun ride that I can only urge people to watch it (even although I pity all my American friends that they might not get the full theatrical experience, as the US release is severly butchered by about 20 minutes...)

[Kris]

About LGBT+ connections - Finland's Compartment Nr.6 - the main character is a lesbian... and the film should be a lock to not just TOP15, but TOP5, imho... What an ending! <3 I'm hoping for the screenplay nod also, but I guess that's "pushing too far" :)
I would call China's entry high profile just because it's Zhang Yimou... but yeah, not any bigger festival wins under it's belt...yet... the same with some film that feature acting superstars :)
I've seen 34 out of those 93 so far and some that are not usually in the running for the sports, but are surprisingly good this year are Jordan, Egypt and Bhutan.
Personal favourites are: Estonia, Finland, Germany, Sweden, Egypt, Norway, Denmark, Japan, Austria and Jordan, but most of them are from my corner of the world (Europe), so even if I'm not biased deliberately, I guess these are just culturally more familiar to me and quality esthetics more easily acceptable. Which means, that Egypt, Japan and Jordan, that are from "other parts" of the world, have that something extra, that moves more universally.
Of those that I've seen, but are NOT good at all: Armenia, Cambodia, Hungary and Slovenia. I also don't believe Ukraine's chances, that is listed under predictions. And I'm personally not a fan of "Titane". Too weird for my taste... although I liked Ducournau's previous one (I guess even more twisted "Raw") a lot more.... or can one say "liked" in that film's context :)

[Travis C]

I am betting on Sweden's TIGERS to be the one eliminated from this year's race. I saw it last week, and it seemd to have a LOT of English in it. If it makes it through the requirement, it would be by the skin of its teeth.

[Fadhil]

Indonesia just held our own version of the Oscars and our submission this year, Yuni, only received Best Actress. An original Netflix movie swept the board last night, which is suspicious to say the least.