Spain's big mistake

by Cláudio Alves

Throughout the recent awards season, I wrote several pieces about the Best International Feature race, an Oscar category that's very dear to my heart. It's also a source of endless frustration for I am Portuguese and Portugal remains the country that holds the record for most submissions without getting a single Oscar nomination. To be fair, that's not always the Academy's fault. Sometimes, the choice submission is so mind-bogglingly misguided, it kills any hope of a nomination the minute it's announced. It's not always that the submitted films are lacking in quality, but, sometimes they're productions that were little seen outside of Portugal and received no buzz whatsoever.

This is by no means a strictly Portuguese problem, mind you. In fact, since we're celebrating the 2002 movie year, it seems like a good time to explore one of Spain's most misjudged bits of Oscar selection…

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Review: Don't miss "And Then We Danced"

by Cláudio Alves

A man is a monument of strength, hard and unbending. A woman is a vision of purity, soft and willowy. For those who teach Georgian traditional dance, this binary is tantamount to a universal truth whose cosmic certainty must be supported by the choreographed bodies. But binaries are conventions fated to be broken by the messiness of being human. Merab, the protagonist of Levan Akin's And Then We Danced, is the element of humanity that breaks the convention and exposes its brittle frailty.

Merab's too soft to be a monument. He's too willowy to be the man of folkloric tradition. He's still a man, though, and a dancer too, one that trains to be part of the National Georgian Ensemble...

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Best International Feature: Vietnam, United Kingdom & Singapore's contenders

by Cláudio Alves

The Oscar shortlists are almost here. On December 16th, we'll finally know which are the 10 films that go forward in the race for the Best International Feature award. To whittle down the record-breaking number of 91 submissions into a sparse 10 won't be an easy feat and there are bound to be many snubs causing controversy and discussion among Oscar buffs. While we wait for that most anticipated date, I invite you to continue our adventure through those 91 submissions. This time around, we're focusing on films that are currently available on Netflix.

There's Vietnam's story of a vengeful mother in search of her kidnapped daughter; the UK's tale of human perseverance in Malawi; and Singapore's oneiric reveries about disappeared drivers and insomniac detectives…

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French Cinema and the Oscars: A Love Story

by Cláudio Alves

France is the most-nominated country in the History of the Best International Feature Oscar, having conquered 39 nods over the decades. They'll probably up that number soon with Ladj Ly's Les Misérables. The likeliness of a nomination doesn't mean the selection of the country's Oscar submission was without controversy. Many a cinephile thinks Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire was more deserving. Without the benefit of being in the race for that particular trophy, the much-lauded period lesbian romance is likely to receive no Oscar love, even though it's eligible for most other categories

While it's rare for French films to be recognized outside the Best International Feature race, it's not unheard of. Since the beginning of the Academy Awards, 53 films have done so. That's not including documentaries or short films (or the number would be yet more inflated) . The Oscars may be very local in their tastes, but they've always shown a bit of Francophilia…

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Best International Feature: France, Denmark & Russia's contenders

by Cláudio Alves

In less than two weeks, December 16th to be exact, we'll know the Best International Feature shortlist. In previous years, there were only nine finalists but, due to recent rule changes, the list has been expanded to ten titles. As usual, expect to see a lot of European productions since this category loves to reward the cinema of the Old Continent. Thinking of those preferences, I've decided to purview the submissions of three European champions of the past. 

Specifically, they are France, with nine competitive wins and three honorary awards uner their belt; Denmark, with three victories; and Russia, which won once or four times if you count USSR's wins. We'll start with the most-nominated country in the category's History…

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