International Oscar Race -- Big First Round of News!

by Nathaniel R

Festival season is about to begin (we kick off with Elisa in Venice again!) which means it's nearly fall. That also means various organizations and academies and councils around the world are deciding which of their country's films they should submit to the Oscar race for Best International Feature Film.

We now know 2 official submissions and a few finalist lists so let's start sharing the good news...

OFFICIAL SUBMISSIONS

SWITZERLAND (5 noms / 2 wins / 3 additional finalists)
Switzerland had a good Oscar run across the 1970s and 1980s but they've struggled to find Oscar favor since, though they have made the finals a few times since Oscar added that step to the process. 

• THUNDER 
  A French language drama from Carmen Jaquier about a teenage girl living in a convent who is reunited with childhoold friends when her sister dies. At the Swiss Film Awards (which run on a different timetable than Oscar of course) it lost to last year's Swiss submission A Piece of Sky though it took prizes for music and sound. It also played at TIFF last fall.

TAJIKISTAN (never nominated)
If their submission is accepted it will only be the second time they've competed for an Oscar nomination. The first submission was back in 1999.

• MELODY
  Tajikistan has chosen a drama about a music teacher (Diman Zandi) at a children's cancer center. The film is in Persian and comes from Iranian director Behrouz Sebt Rasoul. 

FINALIST LISTS
 

CHILE (2 nominations, 1 win, 1 additional finalist)
Chile will decide between these films on August 21st. 

 

• EL CONDE / THE COUNT
  Festival favourite Pablo Larraín has been submitted four times in this category (Tony Manero, No, The Club, and Neruda) securing a nomination for Chile with his friendliest movie (No). His filmography is largely dark and upsetting!  His latest, which premieres the end of the month at Venice, is a comedy (!!!) based on the conceit that the dictator Augusto Pinochet is not dead but actually a vampire. 
• THE ETERNAL MEMORY
  Maite Alberdi was recently submitted by Chile for the documentary The Mole Agent and the film made the finals. Her latest doc is about a couple struggling with Alzheimers disease. It won the Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema-Documentary at Sundance earlier this year. 
• MEETING POINT
  Roberto Baeza helms this documentary about two men who lived together in a torture center. One is still missing and one survived. It started the festival rounds last year. 
• THE SETTLERS
  This one's a feature debut from 40 year old director Felipe Gálvez Haberle. It's a crime drama in both Spanish and English about a mixed race Chilean, a British captain, and an American mercenary, and a Spanish landowner. It premiered at Cannes and will play at NYFF this year as well.
• EL VACIO
  This film comes from director Gustavo Graef Marino who first came to international attention (and was Oscar submitted) for the thriller Johnny 100 Pesos (1993). Not sure what his latest is about -- no IMDb page yet -- but the tagline is "love is everything. sometimes."

PORTUGAL (never nominated)
Portugal has famously never received any Oscar favor so we're always hoping that might change. Portugal will choose between their finalists on September 14th. Our own Cláudio Alves, who lives in Portugal, detailed these candidates for us, writing:

• BAD LIVING
  First part of João Canijo's Silver Bear-winning diptych. My bet for what'll get the final vote, it's a positively actressexual fest for people into Portuguese cinema. I also imagine it will win most of our national cinema awards come the year's end.
• LIVING BAD
  The second, more fragmented, part of that Canijo diptych. While the first film survives independently, I can't see this one doing the same. Then again, we did send the middle part of Miguel Gomes' Arabian Nights trilogy back in 2015.
• LÉGUA
  One more hella depressing movie for the finalist list. This João Miller Guerra and Filipa Reis project considers the plight of a middle-aged woman bound by duty and circumstance to remain alone in her Northern Portugal town, caring for an old manor and the elderly housekeeper in swift deterioration. I really liked it, but I can see some people calling it misery porn. Though, that can be said for Canijo's double feature too.
• NAYOLA
  José Miguel Ribeiro magical realist flick would become the first work of animation submitted by Portugal for this category. Will voters be inclined to consider it after Ice Merchants scored a nomination in last year's shorts category?

NOT AN OFFICIAL LIST BUT 'FINALISTS' NONETHELESS
 

ISRAEL (10 nominations, no wins, 1 additional finalist)
Israel was hot-hot-hot with Oscar voters in the Aughts but the attention has dried up. They always send the Ophir Award winner (provided it's not in English) so this year that means it will be one of the following films, all from directors who've never been submitted to the Oscar race: 

• HOME
  A crime drama from Benny Freedman. In Yiddish and Hebrew
• THE OTHER WIDOW 
  A feature-debut drama from Maayan Rypp about a mistress who demands a legimitate right to mourn her loss. Frequent Ophir nominee Dana Ivgy stars. In Hebrew. 
• RUNNING ON SAND
  This drama from producer turned debut director Adar Shafran involves a football team and a Eritrean refugee. In Hebrew. 
• SEVEN BLESSINGS
  A dramedy from 5 time Ophir nominee Ayelet Menahemi about a Moroccan woman travelling from France to Israel for her wedding and opening old family wounds. In Arabic, Hebrew, and French.
• THE VANISHING SOLDIER
  A narrative feature debut from documentary director Dani Rosenberg (The Death of the Cinema and My Father Too). It's a drama about a teenage soldier who flees back to Tel Aviv. The military thinks he's been kidnapped. In French and Hebrew. 

Of these nominees, The Vanishing Soldier and Seven Blessings lead the nominations with 12 each.

SOUTH KOREA (1 nomination, 1 win, 2 additional finalists)
The Korean Film Council will announce the submission in a couple of weeks. We do know they're considering the following 13 films:

 

• COBWEB (Kim Jee-woon)
  A film-within-a-film comedy. Kim Jee-woon was previously submitted for the period drama The Age of Shadows (2016)
• CONCRETE UTOPIA (Um Tae-Hwa)
  Action drama involving an earthquake in Seoul
• THE DEVIL'S DEAL (Lee Won-tae)
  A crime drama about a politician who decides to get his hands dirty
• HERO (Yoon Je-kyoon)
  ???? Films with generic titles are a perpetual bane in our life
• THE HILL OF SECRETS (Lee Ji-eun)
  A drama aout a young woman who escapes reality by writing
• HOPELESS (Kim chang-hoon)
  A crime drama
• THE MOON (Kim yong-hwa)
  Sci-fi adventure drama from the director of the Along with the Gods franchise
• THE POINT MEN (Yim Soon Rye)
  Action drama about a Korean diplomat in Afghanistan
• RANSOMED (Kim Seong-hun)
  Action drama about the director of A Hard Day. This one is *also* about a Korean diplomat in trouble abroad.
• ROAD TO BOSTON (Kang Je-gyu)
  True story about Korean athletes who ran the 1947 Boston marathon after World War II
• SLEEP (Jason Yu)
  Yu's debut film is a horror thriller about a pregnant wife and the increasingly disturbing sleep habits of her husband. Lee Sun-Kyum (Parasite) and Jung Yu-Mi (Train to Busan). This one premiered during Critics Week at Cannes and Oscar winner Bong Joon-ho (Parasite) is apparently a huge fan of it. Might this be the submission?
• SMUGGLERS (Ryoo Seung-wan)
  The director of Oscar submission Escape from Mogadishu (2021) has a new film. It's an action drama about sea divers in the 1970s. 
• TARGET (Park Hee-kon)
  A serial killer thriller

If we had to take a wild guess we'd say it's going to be either Cobweb or Sleep for the submission.

WHAT ELSE?

That's all we know so far. Many announcements to come and the bulk of them are in September. As for official dates we do know that Romania will announce on September 1st and France (always a nomination threat) will name their finalists on September 13th.

Comments

[Ignacio]

Having only watched Switzerland's Thunder, I don't think it will make the preselection. While I quite enjoyed it , I don't think voters will find it transgressive or memorable enough in comparison with some of the other international titles that have been premiered in the past festivals. I wish it had pushed further on the sensual and religious topics.

[Marilyn Schisler]

I think everyone will have their own opinions and views. I know there are many people who are not impressed with the movie, but I am the opposite. It caught my eye and I really enjoyed it. elastic man

[Saint Otis]

this is a great race between great works Tower Defense

[Zachary Knight]

I believe the best movies for Gosling are still ahead, even though he has already starred in numerous excellent films.