Foreign Oscar Buzz: Denmark & Argentina

Which films will Denmark and Argentina submit for Oscar consideration this year? Both countries have won the Best Foreign Film prize in the recent past and could compete again this year.

Denmark
They've announced their three finalists for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar submission. I think the likeliest of their three finalists is The Hunt, directed by Thomas Vinterberg (A Celebration) which won Mads Mikkelsen Best Actor at Cannes a year plus ago as a teacher under attack due to false allegations from a child. It's currently in release in the States which means it's eligible for the Oscars in general if not for this specific category (which requires official submission... and each country may only choose one film). The major obstacle to its submission might be its lack of newness. It played in Cannes during last year's eligibility period (Oct 11- Sept 12) but not in its home country (making it ineligible for selection last year) and opened within the 2013 window in Denmark making it eligible for submission this year. Got it? But still... it could end up feeling like old news to the Danish powers that be if they vote anything like our Academy who have that notoriously short term "what did I just see?" problem. If the Danes vote for their current hot property they could go with either The Act of Killing, the very buzzy documentary (also in Stateside release right now) about the Indonesian genocide of the 1960s or Northwest from director Michael Noer (who co-directed A Hijacking) a crime thriller about a man named Casper who is moving up in the criminal world selling stolen goods.

Regardless of what they choose, Denmark is popular with Oscar voters. A Royal Affair (2012) was their 9th nominee in the category and they've already won three times (back to back wins in the 80s with Babette's Feast and Pelle the Conqueror and a win for Susanne Bier's In a Better World recently) 

Argentina
This South American country has been nominated six times and won twice. The first statue came for 1985's arthouse hit The Official Story. Argentina won again just a few years ago with Juan José Campanella's crime thriller The Secret in Their Eyes starring Ricardo Darín, who pops up regularly in the country's submitted films. Both Campanella and Darín could factor in again though not together this time.

Darrin stars in Thesis of a Homicide, another crime thriller, and Campanella directed the animated hit Metegol (trailer embedded below). Darín might have competition for familiar Argentinian face this year though since Diego Peretti stars in two films: Wakolda (from the director of the Oscar submitted XXY) about a family who lived with Nazi war criminal/physician Josef Mengele without realizing who he was and La Reconstruccion about a lonely man on a trip. My current guess is that it'll be Wakolda that gets Argentina's vote, both for the subject matter and because most countries tend to repeat directors in their submissions over the years. [Thanks to reader Marcos for his thoughts on these possible submissions.]

P.S. For what it's worth though only one animated film (Israel's Waltz With Bashir) has ever been nominated in the Foreign Film category, that doesn't stop countries from trying with their submissions.

Foreign Oscar Buzz: Israel, Hungary and Romania

Soon we'll be inundated with Foreign Film Oscar Submission news but for now news from three countries to get us started. The Oscar Charts will be up this weekend for this always diverse and exciting (if you're paying attention) category. [Thanks to Daniel, Yonatan and A.D. for the tips]

S#x Acts

ISRAEL
Israel has been on a hot streak with Oscar with four nominations in the past six years so news of the Ophir Awards is always important. This narrows the field for which film will be their official submission since they go with the Ophir winner. Seven films are in the running for their Best Picture (The Ophir).

The frontrunner is Bethlehem (12 nominations) a drama about the Arab- Israel conflict which focuses on three characters: An Israeli secret services agent, his teenage Palestinian informant and the informant's older brother, a commander of the Al Aqsa Martyr's brigade. Other nominees include S#x Acts, a drama about a transfer student who improves her social status via the boys at her new school. Sukaryot is about an Israeli-Arab entrepreneur wants to open a chain of candy store competing directly with an Israeli corporation. Magic Men is a dramedy about a Hasidic Jew who joins his magician father on a trip to Greece to find the man who saved his father during the Holocaust. And the soul comedy is Hunting Elephants about a child's adult relatives who set out to rob a bank. (Patrick Stewart is one of the leads so perhaps this will have too much English dialogue to qualify?) Far less likely are two films which only scored Best Picture nominations at the Ophirs: White Panther about a young Russian who seeks refuge from street gangs in a local boxing gym and I Am Bialik, a mockumentary about a man who claims he's descended from Israel's national poet.

ROMANIA
Tough Romanian cinema has been hot with critics for nearly a decade but has yet to catch on with the Academy, who (generally speaking) prefer warmer films. Can Child's Pose, their 2013 submission, break through? The Golden Bear winning film stars the acclaimed Luminita Gheorghiu who previously appeared in two of the country's most important exports (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and The Death of Mr Lazarescu).

Luminita in "Child's Pose"

The Guardian synopsizes the contemporary political drama like so:

the film tells the story of a mother's desperate and often illegal attempts to save her son from prosecution after he knocks down and kills an impoverished teenager...

HUNGARY
The official submission is The Notebook/A nagy füzet which was the Karlovy Vary winner. Hungary had a solid Oscar run in the 1980s but has had difficult finding traction since and especially in the past couple of decades when they've made very daring oddball choices for their representative films. This new one appears to be more in Oscar's wheelhouse since it's about two young boys ripped from their parents during World War II.

For whatever reason, Oscar has historically been very kind to narratives about children in wartime in this category, not just because at least a handful of films that fit that genre seem to be submitted each year but because the tear-jerking obviously transcends culture and language barriers. This one looks discomfitingly unsentimental though with children hardening themselves to atrocities. 

If you've seen any of these at festivals, have your say in the comments. Which country are you most excited to see land a nod this year?

We Link Alone

Big Screen
BuzzFeed for your 4th of July Hangover... 18 ways Drop Dead Gorgeous makes you proud to be an American
Vimeo Best Supporting Visual Effects? in The Great Gatsby
Towleroad Tilda Swinton showing solidarity with Russian gays at the Kremlin
Deviant Art Claire Hummal is rethinking Disney Princesses with more period-accurate wear 

Amiresque on The Bling Ring
Under the Radar talks with Pedro and cast on I'm So Excited 
i09 for those who are not spoiler-averse "10 great movies where the heroes are doomed" 
Guardian here's a list topic I've literally never seen before... "the 10 greatest Arab movies"

Small Screen
Gold Derby Can Mad Men ever turn around its Emmy problems?
Vulture why hasn't ABC Family renewed OR cancelled Bunheads? Is there any hope for one of the best shows on TV to return? And if they wanted to capitalize on the acclaim, why on gods green earth didn't they submit it for Emmy consideration? It's all very baffling.

Today's Curiousity
Salon interviews Miranda July on her new celebrity-heavy forwarded email project "We Think Alone" with personal outbox appearances from Kirsten Dunst, Lena Dunham and more.

Red Carpet & Un Certain Regard Prizes

I haven't been able to find a partner for Red Carpet Convo discussions this holiday weekend *sniffle* so instead I thought I'd share some red carpet lineups with jury prizes and brief notes now that the awards are coming in. Are you with me?

First up is the Un Certain Regard jury which was led by Danish director Thomas Vinterberg who came to fame with the great Festen (Celebration) in 1998 and has been enjoying similarly ecstatic praise for his recent picture The Hunt which could be Denmark's Oscar entry this year.  On his jury were actresses Zhang Ziyi, Ludivine Sagnier, Head of Brazil's Festival Ilda Santiago and producer Enrique Gonzalez Macho.  Here's Ziyi... ! 

Which is your favorite? And when was the last time you saw Ziyi onscreen? It seems like it's been forever for me so I'm eager for The Grandmaster which is a totally unofficial 2046 reunion (see also: Tony Leung & Wong Kar Wai)

UN CERTAIN REGARD PRIZES

The Missing Picture (Cambodia)
Rithy Pan's picture about the horrors of the Pol Pot regime -- I'm crazy about the poster! -- won the Un Certain Regard prize

Omar (Israel)
Hany Abu-Assad, who was Oscar nominated for Paradise Now, won the jury prize (i.e. second place) for this movie which returns to the same brutal setting of the Palestine-Israel conflict and focuses on three friends caught up in the cycle of violence.

Fruitvale Station (USA)
Ryan Coogler's Sundance winner about the police killing of an innocent Bay Area man (Michael B Jordan) took the "Future Award". A Future with Oscar maybe...

Stranger by the Lake (France)
This controversial murder mystery from Alain Guiraudie -- already infamous for its nudity and gay sex -- took home the directing prize. The film takes place entirely outdoors in a gay cruising area. Strand Releasing will distribute in the States at some point.

The Cage of Gold (Mexico)
Diego Quemada-Diez, a camera operator of films you've seen like 21 Grams and The Constant Gardener, has graduated to directing. His ensemble cast of non-professional teens playing illegal migrants were given the Talent Award 

On their choices, Vinterberg says:

One of the finest achievements in filmmaking is to create unforgettable moments – moments that stay with us – as a collective memory – as a collective mirror of our existence. Clay figures, extreme beauty, violence, homosexual blow jobs, systematic humiliation of the human kind, Léa Seydoux’s legs, great Brando imitations are just some of the unique images that will follow us for a while.

Well... all of those things do sound memorable even if we don't have much context for them just yet. And so so we close with Ziyi's fellow juror Ludivine Sagnier, an actress j'adore and who we've interviewed right here.

When was the last time you saw Ludivine onscreen?

Q&A: Disappointing Actresses, Mixed-Up Hunks, Subtitled Crickets

And now the return of the 'Ask Nathaniel/Q&A' series wherein you asked me questions and I pick two handfuls to answer. 

Disposable project on the line for Emily. Yes, another one.DAVID: Which actresses filmographies are you most disappointed in? I'm thinking in terms of actresses you admire and think are incredibly talented, but, for whatever reason, end up working in subpar films.

NATHANIEL: I think the popular answer here is Rachel McAdams but aside from Mean Girls I've never cared too much. The answer that came immediately to mind was Emily Blunt. It’s not that she’s making terrible films per se, it’s just that given how Oscar worthy she was in that plum comic part in Devil Wears Prada seven long years ago, and then how sexy she was in that blink and you’ll miss her bit in Charlie Wilson’s War soon thereafter, I expected her career to explode in the way, say, Carey Mulligan’s did post An Education or at least for her to be more direct competition for Anne Hathaway. I wonder why Blunt isn’t either in more demand or more interested in challenging herself. Maybe it's just bad luck. She seems to be working exclusively in indies that don't crossover, mainstream films that are quickly forgotten or headlining gigs which don't really work in some crucial way (Young Victoria, Adjustment Bureau). I’d love to see her really challenged either by a role or by an auteur. Will Into the Woods bring a happily ever after to that heat-losing career?

The second choice is Evan Rachel Wood who seemed to chuck what looked like incredible range and promise to the side for a long procession of Very Bad Girls. This was, in no small part thanks to her inarguable electricity in Thirteen (2003) but when you play variations on one theme too often you either become a superstar or people lose interest. I thought she was good in Ides of March (2011) but it isn't what she needed. What she needs is a total about face role.

JOHN T: The last foreign language film to clear $20 million was Pan's Labyrinth, almost seven years ago. What do you think it would take for a foreign language film to catch on in that way again?

Amy Adams, Oscar Tragedies, and a Beefcake Triple after the jump...

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