International Feature Race - Part 2: The Auteurs

by Nathaniel R

To broaden your appreciation of this year's Best International Feature Film Oscar race we already looked at some overall trivia. Now let's look at some stats involving the artists behind the camera. We'll highlight 14 of the directors in the mix this year from legends, to debuts, to queer artists, to a handful of filmmakers that we've interviewed already....

LEGENDS & MASTERS

Park Chan-wook. Photographed by Oh Suk Kuhn

• Park Chan Wook (South Korea's Decision to Leave) 
Remarkably this 59 year-old auteur and Academy member has never been submitted by South Korea before despite a rich filmography with classics like The Handmaiden, Thirst, Lady Vengeance, Oldboy and Joint Security Area behind him...

Decision to Leave is his 11th narrative feature. So why hasn't he been submitted? Well, it is now common wisdom that South Korea has an embarrasment of riches in filmmaking talent, above or below the line. That obviously make competition, even for the submission portion of the year, intense. It does make you wonder about countries that don't invest in their cinematic arts the way South Korea does... what incredible talents are we missing when governments don't make investments in the arts? 

• Rachid Bouchareb (Algeria's Our Brothers) 
• Jerzy Smolikowski (Poland's EO) 
more on them later in this post

This year's International Feature Film competition is unusually light on established giants. That's fine, mind you! Not every year should be "Masters only!". The wildly varying quality of the Cannes competition lineup each year, which stays beholden to them, bears this out; Cinephiles should not live on legends alone. You have to make room for artists taking it to the next level as well as promising debuts.

OUR INTERVIEWS THUS FAR

Alli Haapasalo. Photographer unknown

Alli Haapasalo (Finland's Girl Picture)
Her wonderful film Girl Picture, which won the Audience award at Sundance, marks her second full feature. After college she decided to pursue creative work and got her Masters at Tisch in NYC before making her feature debut Love and Fury (2016). Haapasalo has dual citizenship in Finland and the US (she married an American), though she lives in Finland.  OUR INTERVIEW

Lou Yi-an. Photographer unknown.

Lou Yi-An (Taiwan's Goddamned Asura)
Lou's first made his name in Taiwanese television before making his feature debut with A Place of One's Own (2009). Later he had his first commercial hit with the crime drama White Lies Black Lies (2015). His work usually focuses on the working class and social issues. His current picture, about a disturbed young man who opens fire into a crowd, took the Original Screenplay award at the Taipei Film Festival. OUR INTERVIEW

Gabriel Martins. Photograph by Isabella Martins

Gabriel Martins (Brazil's Mars One)
Though Martins has been working in features for some time, Mars One is his solo feature directorial debut. The drama about a black family in the aftermath of an election of a right wing president, has been a major success at festivals winning several prizes.  OUR INTERVIEW / REVIEW

Orits Fouks Rotem. Screengrab from our interview

Orits Fouks Rotem (Israel's Cinema Sabaya)
Though she's contributed to an omnibus feature, Cinema Sabaya marks her feature directorial debut. It's about Arab and Jewish women getting to know each other during a filmmaking workshop. After winning the Ophir Award at home it becames Israel's Oscar submission. OUR INTERVIEW

Maryam Touzani. Screengrab from AFI interview

Maryam Touzani (Morocco's Blue Caftan)
Touzani originally worked as a film journalist before feeling the need to make her own films. She followed her breakout debut Adam (2020), which was Oscar submitted, with this sexual drama about a husband and wife and the young apprentice who begins to work in their tailor shop. INTERVIEW FORTHCOMING 

RISING AUTEURS

They've only made a few features but it's easy to see "legend" status coming if they keep up this quality and the festival reception continues to be this excitable...

Ali Abassi. AFP Photo from Cannes

• Ali Abassi (Denmark's Holy Spider)
On the surface Holy Spider and Abassi's international breakthrough Border have little in common. One is about a misogynist serial killer in Iran and the intrepid female journalist on his tail. The earlier film is about a strange-looking customs officer in Sweden who finally meets her match, a mysterious man she can't quite figure out. Despite surface dissimilarities both films won major prizes at Cannes (Best Actress and Un Certain Regard, respectively), both demonstrate an uncommon ability to mine the moribund "procedural" subgenre for fresh sparks and insights, offer provocative takes on gender and sex, and are buoyed by artful specificity in terms of atmosphere. Abassi was born in Tehran, Iran but became a filmmaker in Scandinavia. He went to university in Sweden before settling in Denmark.  REVIEW / SECOND OPINION / FOUR EFA NOMINATIONS / DENMARK'S RICH OSCAR HISTORY

Carla Simón. Photographed by Xavier Torres. Image from Variety
• Carla Simón (Spain's Alcarràs) 
This young filmmkaer from Catalonia, Spain is just 35 but with just two films under her belt, she's already taken major prizes at both Berlinale and Venice, won a Goya, and been Oscar submitted twice. She's mined her own life for inspiration and drama in both of her feature films to huge critical acclaim. Her debut Summer 1993 (2017) follows a six year old girl who suddenly loses both of her parents to AIDS (as Simón did) and her new film Alcarràs, about a family of peach farmers, was shot in rural Garrotxa where she grew up.  REVIEW / SECOND OPINION / TWO EFA NOMINATIONS / SPAIN'S OSCAR HISTORY

THE DEBUTS

Most of the following directors have some shorts under their belt, and a few have made documentaries. But this year they've all made their narrative feature debuts.

Shuming He. Photographed by ckinfolk. From Instagram

Shuming He (Singapore's Ajoomma)
Fun fact. Shuming He went to grad school at the American Film Institute and co-wrote the script to his comedy Ajooma in English which then had to be translated into Korean. The movie is about a middle-aged Singaporean "Auntie" who is obsessed with Korean TV (it's inspired by Shuming He's own mother's tv habits). She takes a trip to South Korea which becomes a journey of self-discovery.

• Mohamed al Salman (Saudi Arabia)
• Colm Bairéad (Ireland)
• Laurynas Bareisa (Lithuania)
• Michal Blasko (Slovakia)
• Yorgos Goussis (Greece)
• Chie Hayakawa (Japan)
• Orit Fouks Rotem (Israel) 
• Saim Sadiq (Pakistan)
• Darin J Sallam (Jordan)
• Erige Sehiri (Tunisia)
• Monica Stan (Romania)
• Goran Stolevski (Austrlalia) -more on him later in the post
• Adam Toser (Hungary)

MISCELLANIA

Some final stats for fun and niche interest!

DIRECTORS IN THE MIX WHO'VE BEEN SUBMITTED THE MOST

Rachid Bouchareb. Photographed by Camille McQuat

1. Rachid Bouchareb (Algeria's Our Brothers) - 7 times
Bouchareb has made 12 films in his career and been submitted for the majority of them! Algeria chose him for Cheb (1991), Dust of Life (1995 - nominee), Little Senegal (2000), Days of Glory (2006 - nominee), Outside the Law (2010 - nominee), Road to Istanbul (2017), and this year Our Brothers (2022). The latter would be his 8th time but one of the earlier submissions London River (2009) was disqualified... presumably for having too much English language dialogue (it was set in London and Brenda Blethyn was one of the stars).

Bouchareb is one of only two directors Algeria has sent multiple times. The other is the 88 year old filmmaker Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina who has been submitted four times, including with his most famous film is Chronicle of the Years on Fire (1975)

Some years in this category are brimming with frequent players but this year it's almost all fresh blood (in terms of Oscar). Still these directors are all making their sophomor attempt at an Oscar nomination for their home countries.

2. Jerzy Skolimowski - (Poland's EO) - 3 times
He was previously submitted for the Belgian film Le Depart (1967) and the Polish film Eleven Minutes ().

3. A huge tie. The following eight directors (alpha order) have each been submitted twice.

• Ali Abassi (Denmark's Holy Spider - previously submitted by Sweden for Border)
• Lukas Dhont (Belgium's Close - previously the trans drama Girl)
• Gentian Koçi (Algeria's A Cup of Coffee... - previously  Daybreak)
• Carla Simón (Spain's Alcarràs - previously Summer 1993)
• Jerzy Skolimowski (Poland's EO - previously 11 Minutes)
• Teona Strugar Mitevska (Macedonia's Happiest Man...  - previously I'm From Titov Veles)
• Arturo Montenegro (Panama's Birthday Boy - previously the trans drama Everybody Changes)
• Viesturs Kairiss (Latvia's January - previously The Chronicles of Melanie)
• Maryam Touzani (Morocco's Blue Caftan - previously Adam)

YOUNGEST DIRECTORS SUBMITTED THIS YEAR 

Saim Sadiq. Photographer unknown from his Instagram account

1. Saim Sadiq Pakistan's Joyland) -31
Pakistani cinema is not typically a feature of the film festival circuit but if 31 year old Saim Sadiq continues with his current momentum that could change. His short film Darling (which worked as proof of concept for his feature debut Joyland) was a prize winner at Venice and SXSW a few years back and Joyland definitely made good on that promise. The layered drama about a young husband in a very partriachal family who falls for a trans dancer, has already taking both the Queer Palm and the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes, the Young Cinema Award at APSA, and a few other scattered prizes. Initially banned in Pakistan the ban was lifted in time for Oscar qualification. REVIEW / CONTROVERSY

1. [tie] Lukas Dhont (Belgium's Close) - 31 more on him later in this post 
3. [tie] Amil Shivji (Tanzania) and Bene Dion Rajagukguk (Indonesia) - 32 each
5. Michael Blasko (Slovakia) - 33
6. Laurynas Bareisa (Lithuania) - 34
7. Carla Simón (Spain) - 35 

caveat to this list: We don't know the age of a few of the directors and four of them at least -- Kenya's Andrew Kaggia, Saudi Arabia's Mohamed Al Salman, Guatemala's Anais Taracena, and Romania's Monica Stan -- look quite young.

OLDEST DIRECTORS SUBMITTED THIS YEAR 

Jerzy Skolimowski. Photographed by Maksymilian Rigamonti

1. Jerzy Skolimowski - 84 (Poland's EO)
He made his directorial debut in 1960 with The Menacing Eye and was a mainstay of European cinema ever since, apart from a self-imposed hiatus in the 1990s and most of the 2000s. He won the Berlinale in 1967 for his Belgian film Le Depart. In addition to his own acclaimed filmography he also writes for others (most famously Roman Polanski's classic Knife in the Water) and also acts. You can spot him in the Mikhail Baryshnikov dance drama White Nights (1985) and The Avengers (2012) of all things. His latest EO pays tribute to the classic Au Hasard Balthasar with its donkey-eyed view of contemporary Europe. REVIEW

2. Rachid Bouchareb - 69 (Algeria's Our Brothers)
3. Moussa Sene Absa - 64 (Senegal's Xale)
4. Tayfun Pirselimoglu - 63 (Turkey's)
5. [TIE] Mario Martone (Italy's Nostalgia) and Shamil Aliyev (Azerbaijan's A Cup Of Coffee With Shoes On) - 62 each

LGBTQ DIRECTORS SUBMITTED

Given that directors aren't exactly celebrities unless they've been around a bit, and most of them aren't grilled about their personal lives the way actors are, their sexuality usually remains unknown unless they offer it up in interviews. When they do it's usually prompted by their work. There are at least two LGBTQ directors submitted this year...

Lukas Dhont. Photographed by Emily Berl

• Lukas Dhont (Belgium's Close)
Dhont's first major claim to fame, the trans drama Girl, was well received in Europe but not in the US where queer identity politics are more heated. Nevertheless it made the finals at the Oscars and was Globe-nominated. His second feature film Close, about an intimate teenage male friendship, has also been widely praised overseas and is currently up for the BIFAs and EFAs. A24 will release it eventually in the US. REVIEW / SECOND OPINION / FOUR EFA NOMINATIONS

Goran Stolevski. Photographer Unknown

• Goran Stolevski (Australia's You Won't Be Alone)
The 36 year old Macedonian-born director emigrated to Australia when he was just 12. From interviews he sounds like our kind of cinephile, watching old movies incessantly as a teenager with a preference for actresses & auteurs!  You Won't Be Alone marks his feature directorial debut. Curiously, despite the submission, his acclaimed horror film was entirely shut out of Australia's own awards the AACTAs. REVIEW

Okay that's it. Hope you enjoyed. Here are the submission charts and current predictions