7 new Oscar submissions for Best International Feature

Friday

Sep162022

Friday, September 16, 2022 at 11:22AM

We're now up to 40 submissions in the upcoming Oscar race for Best International Feature Film. You can see the full charts here but if that's too much all at once for you, here are the latest countries to announce from Armenia to Slovakia, some going with films that are currently playing at TIFF...

🇦🇲 AURORA'S SUNRISE (Inna Sahakyan)
ARMENIA (no results yet from 11 submissions)

This one sounds interesting. It's an animated documentary about a genocide survivor who went on to become a star of the silent film era. It premiered at the Annecy Animation festival this summer.

🇧🇴 UTAMA (Alejandro Loayza Grisi)
BOLIVIA (no results yet from 14 submissions)

This one is about an elderly couple in the Bolivian highlands and their struggle during a long drought. It's a directorial debut from a 36 year old Bolivian cinematographer. Cláudio reviewed the film at Sundance.

🇬🇪 A LONG BREAK (Davit Pirstkhalava)
GEORGIA (1 nomination and1 additional finalists from 21 submissions)

A thirtysomething man plans a reunion for his school friends with the secret agenda of punishing one of them who made his life miserable. This is another directorial debut from a young filmmaker. The 35 year old has written a few produced screenplays prior to this. It premiered at TIFF last week.

🇰🇿 LIFE (Emir Baigazan)
KAZAKHSTAN (1 nominations and 2 additional finalists from 17 submissions)

Took a long time to find an image for this one! Turns out it's hard to google search "life" in any language --an SEO nightmare! I personally loved this filmmaker's most recent picture, The River (2018) which was about five brothers growing up in a strict household far away from urban life and technology. This one sounds like it's taking a tiny facet of that film, the effect a tablet has on the brothers, when a city cousin visits, and exploding it into an almost sci-fi story. Apparently it's about a company that digitizes memories in Kazakhstan's largest city but then suffers a huge data loss. It's one of the longest films submitted this year at almost three hours. It opened in Kazakhstan in March and is currently playing at TIFF.

🇽🇰 LOOKING FOR VENERA (Norika Sefa)
KOSOVO (1 finalist from 9 submissions)

A drama about a quiet girl who can't get any privacy in her small house. Yet another directorial feature debut! It did the festival circuit in 2021 and is now streaming on MUBI.

🇲🇪 THE ELEGY OF LAUREL (Dusan Kasalica)
MONTENEGRO (nothing yet from 9 submissions)

This sounds bizarre and intriguing -- a professor, realizing his marriage is over, wanders into the forest and encounters a woman who used to be a snake. It opened in Montenegro back in February.

🇸🇰 VICTIM (Michal Blasko)
SLOVAKIA (nothing yet from 26 submissions though one masterpiece in the Slovak language film won the prize back when Slovakia was part of Czechoslovokia)

A feature debut from a 33 year old director. He previously worked in television and making short films, the last of which were The Truck and Atlantis 2003 (both 2017) which did well at festivals. His debut is about a woman who begins to doubt her son's story about being assults by three men near the border. It premiered at Venice and is currently playing at TIFF.

Previous Submission Posts

• Austria, Finland, Croatia, Netherlands, Indonesia, Guatemala, Paraguay
• Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Turkey, Uganda
• Albania, Hungary, Slovenia, Tunisia, Ukraine
• Algeria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Greece
• Canada, Germany
• Ecuador, Poland
• Uruguay
• Taiwan
• South Korea, Ireland, Switzerland

they've narrowed it down
• France's finalists
• Denmark's finalists
• Israel's finalists
• Sweden's finalists
• Spain's finalists - they chose Alcarras
• Mexico's finalists