First 3 International Feature Submissions for the 95th Oscars

by Nathaniel R

The incredible Tang Wei stars in Park Chan-wook's "Decision to Leave"

Finally some news on the Best International Feature Film Oscar race. It's the most exciting for us to track since you really have to play along to be in the know.  Earlier today we told you about the possibilities from Israel (they always select the winner of the Ophir... unless they can't for eligibilty reasons) and we also have our first three official submissions. They are...

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2022 Ophir Nominees include dramedy "Karaoke" and animated "Where is Anne Frank?"

by Nathaniel R

the marital dramedy "Karaoke" might become Israel's Oscar submission

Israel's annual film awards, the Ophirs, are very hard to track. The nominations were announced yesterday but we're still searching for a full list of nominees since their website is in Hebrew (I think this is the list). Online media is historically terrible about providing full lists of nominations for anything outside Hollywood, usually opting for a couple of paragraphs about the top prize only. Such is the case this year. The only online article available at the time I'm writing this is from the Jerusalem Post which, true to form, lists only the Best Picture contenders. IMDb only lists two categories at this writing. But we finally found a list. The translation was computer generated so there may be a few errors and it reads a bit messy. Have patience.

The Best Picture nominees (one of which will become the Oscar submission)...

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When will we start getting "official" submissions for the International Feature Film Oscar race?

The International Feature Film Oscar race has (mostly) reverted to its pre-COVID calendar for 2022. The past couple of years have been chaos with releases and deadline shifts but we're (almost) back to the usual which doesn't follow the  calendar year overseas. "WHAT ON EARTH," you ask? "Oscar is always by calendar year!" Nope, not quite within this category...

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Ranking the International Feature Film Winners

by Juan Carlos Ojano

From De Sica to Hamaguchi, the past two years of hosting the podcast The One-Inch Barrier has allowed me to watch all that films that were selected by the Academy for its International Feature Film category - 74 winners and 337 nominees (all but one title). While this category has had its issues over the years, it has also put an international spotlight on non-English language cinema on Hollywood’s biggest night. While the category has  always been far from a perfect encapsulation of world cinema, it's a great jumping off point as noted in the series finale.  (Cláudio Alves did a beautiful summary of our discussion - video included!). 

Here is my personal not-that-definitive ranking of the winners of the category. Things are very fluid especially in the midsection... 

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Cannes Winners: Triangle of Sadness, Park Chan-wook, and more...

by Nathaniel R

TRIANGLE OF SADNESS

The world's most famous film festival wrapped today in the South of France after 10 days of celebrity glamour, arthouse flexing, and critical divisions. As with last year a big thank you to our Italian friend and contributor Elisa Giudici for her on-the-ground coverage. She reviewed all of the films that were given prizes! The links for the new films go to Elisa's reviews. Links on older films will take you to past coverage from various writers. 

Vincent Lindon's jury didn't seem to come to clear unanimous agreements since there were two different ties. Of the 21 competition features 10 won prizes...

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