Six More Foreign Film Oscar Contenders

by Nathaniel R

We're now up to 36 entries for Best Foreign Language Film, so  over one-third of the way to the full list. Of the six latest announcements The Heiresses has had the arguably highest profile at festivals but the Russian entry is the most "typically Oscar-like" in subject matter, though that thankfully matters less than it once did, even in the foreign category. 

• The Great Mystical Circus Brazil
  A century in the life of a family of circus owners. This is the 7th time Brazil has submitted a film by Carlos Diegues. He's their most frequently submitted director but none of his submitted films have been nominated. 
• Graves Without a Name Cambodia
  Rithy Panh created Cambodia's only Oscar nominee (the brilliant documentary The Missing Picture). This is another doc on the same topic: the Kmer Rouge and genocide
• Polyxeni Greece 
  The plot sounds intriguing. A young Greek orphan with a lust for life, is adopted and raised by a wealthy Greek-Turkish couple, unaware that people are plotting and after her large inheritance. Greece used to automatically submit the winner of the Thessaloniki Film Festival but those awards have since been abolished. The new big prizes for Greek films are the Hellenic Film Awards (often referred to as "the Iris" like we call the Academy Awards "Oscar"). They began in 2010 with Dogtooth as their first winner but winning the Iris (which Polyxeni did) doesn't automatically get you the Oscar submission since the submission is now decided by a committee. 
• Sunset Hungary
  It's László Nemes' follow up to his Oscar winning debut Son of Saul. He's gone further back in time from World War II in the previous picture to just before World War I for this story of a young woman who wants to be a milliner in a hat shop previously owned by her parents.
• The Heiresses Paraguay 
  Lesbian drama about a formerly wealthy woman restarting her life after her longtime partner is imprisoned. Among its several festival prizes is the promising Best Actress win at Berlinale.
• Sobibor  - Russia 
  A true story of a prisoner uprising at an extermination camp in Russia during World War II.

Related:
FOREIGN FILM PREDICTIONS
FOREIGN FILM SUBMISSION CHARTS

Burning, The Cakemaker and more join the Foreign Film Race.

by Nathaniel R

We're now up to 31 Oscar submissions so, a third of our way to the finish line. Here are the new announcements since the last post. 

• The Cakemaker- Israel 
  A gay drama about a man who becomes friends with his dead lover's wife (who didn't know they were involved). It just won the Ophir for Best Picture (along with Best Director, Actress, and more). This had a theatrical release in the US over the summer. Have y'all seen it? 
• Gutland  - Luxembourg  
  We recently mentioned that this noir starring Frederic Lau (Victoria) and Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) is streaming on Amazon Prime. But when we mentioned it we had no idea it would be Oscar submitted.
• The Resistant Banker - The Netherlands 
  WW II drama about a Dutch banker funding the resistance under the noses of Nazis. That sounds right up the ally of how Oscar used to play the Foreign Film category but times have changed. Will it be good enough to appeal to their WW II drama-loving previous natures?
• Offenders - Serbia
  A thriller about university students out to test a theory that human nature inevitably leads to anarchy.  
• Burning -South Korea
  The Cannes hit which gets a US release in early November. Oscar is notoriously resistant to Asian cinema which is a total shame since this one has received rave reviews and its South Korea's third time choosing a  Lee Chang-dong picture and he's such a talented filmmaker but Oscar has yet to recognize that. Or South Korea in general despite their awesome cinema.
• Champions - Spain
   A film about a team of disabled athletes starring real disabled people. It's apparently a huge crowd-pleasing hit in Spain

Related:
FOREIGN FILM PREDICTIONS
FOREIGN FILM SUBMISSION CHARTS

Posterized: Movies About Nun

by Nathaniel R

Sally Field as "The Flying Nun"... but that's a TV showThough we hate that every movie wants to become a 'universe' now, box office pundits predict that The Nun -- part of The Conjuring series -- is going to be huge. And, hell, we kind of love nun movies because we didn't grow up Catholic so it always seems like a fun or exotic other to us with peculiar hangups and fashion sense. Perhaps Catholics don't like nun movies quite as much or go into them with far more complicated baggage?

There are LOTS of B movies about nuns -- particular of the naughty variety (whether that's horror films or sexual films) but we're looking at only the more known titles here. (And surely there are a TON of foreign films about nuns that we're unfamiliar with though we've included a few famous ones in the list below.) 

This list is dedicated to Sally Field The Flying Nun, and Ann Dowd's nun in the short-lived TV series Nothing Sacred (both of whom we love) because this list is about nun movies.

OK, let's survey the posters. How many of these 39 nun movies have you seen?  If we've discussed the movie, it's linked up below... 

Click to read more ...

Intriguing Foreign Film Oscar options from Kosovo, Norway, and more

by Nathaniel R

We're now up to 24 Oscar submissions so we're almost a third of our way to seeing the full list. Here are the new announcements since the last post. (You can see the full submission list, with more details and links to trailers and such, on the updated Oscar charts.) Surprisingly none of the three expected frontrunners (Poland's Cold War,  Mexico's Roma, and Lebanon's Capernaum) have been officially announced as submissions yet. We have long lists for Brazil, Denmark, The Netherlands, and Israel to date but no official pick. We've usually heard about Mexico's longlist by now as well. Hmmm. 

• The Waldheim Waltz -Austria 
  Documentary on a former UN Secretary General's relationship with the Nazis
• The Eighth Commisioner -Croatia 
  A comedy about a politician overseeing an election on a remote island
• A Son of Man  -Ecuador
  Father and son search for inca gold
• Euthanizer - Finland
  A dark morality tale about a mechanic who puts sick pets out of their misery... it's apparently pro-animal and anti-irresponsible pet owners though it sounds horrifying on surface. 
• Namme  - Georgia
  A family drama about the tradition of local healing waters threatened by environmental problems
• The Marriage - Kosovo
  A gay love triangle in which a woman doesn't know her fiance is in love with his best friend
• What Will People Say - Norway
  A Pakistani-Norwegian teenager is kidnapped by her parents and taken to Pakistan (where she has never been) to teach her a lesson. This film was released in the US back in July and we missed it. Argh!
• Buffalo Boys -Singapore
  A 19th century action movie about two brothers avenging their father, a former Sultan
• The Interpreter -Slovakia
  Two old men journey to meet surviving witnesses of a wartime tragedy

Related:
First 10 official contenders for foreign film
6 more contenders for foreign film
49 suggested European Film Awards contenders
Spain's Finalists
Israel's Finalists

Four More Foreign Film Oscar Submissions

by Nathaniel R

Four more official entries to the Foreign Language Film Oscar race.

• Birds of Passage -Colombia
  This is from the director Ciro Guerra (who has a co-director this time) the man behind Colombia's only Oscar nominee and TFE favorite Embrace of the Serpent.  The new film is a crime/family drama.
  Opening in the US in February. Orchard distributing
• Border -Sweden
  Un Certain Regard winner at Cannes this year. It's based on a novella by the author of Let the Right One In (!) and is a reportedly strange tale of a woman with the ability to sense and smell how people feel.
  Opening in the US October 26th. Neon distributing.
• Donbass -Ukraine
  From the acclaimed Sergey Loznitsa (My Joy, A Gentle Creature). This one is a cheerful tale (he said sarcastically given Loznitsa's filmography) about the degradation of Ukranian society in our post-truth world
• La Familia -Venezuela
  A father son drama about a violent neighborhood.
  Played in the US earlier this month. Film Movement distributing. 

UPDATE HOURS LATER - TWO MORE ENTRIES

• Never Look Away - Germany
  From Florian Henckel von Donnersmarch (The Lives of Others) comes this story of a romance between two art students (Tom Schilling and Paula Beer) and her father (Sebastian Koch) who fights against the relationship
• Ghost Hunting - Palestine
  A documentary about a former interrogation center in which the inmates reenact their interrogations inside a replica of the center built to scale

Related:
Updated Oscar charts for foreign film
First 10 official contenders for foreign film
49 suggested European Film Awards contenders
Spain's Finalists
Israel's Finalists