The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
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Monday, August 11, 2025 at 8:00AM Three more countries are nearing their decisions: Netherlands, Switzerland, and Israel. The first two have won the category before but Israel remains the most-nominated country that's never taken this Oscar. Let's look at the posisble contenders from each after the jump...
Monday, September 9, 2024 at 10:00PM 
It’s always worth keeping track of filmmakers whose first films are nominated for the Oscar for Best International Feature, and sometimes it’s quite a wait to see them return for a sophomore effort. Palestinian director Scandar Copti earned Israel its nine (and third consecutive) nomination in the foreign film category in 2009 along with Israeli co-director Yaron Shani. Fifteen years later, Copti is back with another film that feels very much like his first, probing the complexities of multicultural society in a country that’s very often in the news but not always portrayed in such an authentic and vivid manner…
Happy Holidays, Israel, Manar Shehab, Scandar Copti, TIFF, Toufic Danial Thursday, September 5, 2024 at 11:00PM 
Getting older is supposed to come with certain issues, but there’s a notion that a peaceful retirement might be the goal. For some, it just doesn’t work that way, and continuing to hold down a monotonous job for many years while dealing with troublesome family dynamics may be their fate. The Israeli film Bliss spotlights a couple with a big age difference both dealing with unexpected relics of their pasts confronting them later in life…
Asi Levi, Bliss, Israel, Sasson Gabay, Shemi Zarhin, TIFF Sunday, September 1, 2024 at 5:27PM by Nathaniel R
Though I know I've been absent from writing, I have been updating the International Feature Film Oscar charts to track the submissions. So far 15 countries have announced their submissions, some of which are available to US viewers. After the jump, the list so far, impending decisions from Israel and South Korea, and general observations...
Friday, August 11, 2023 at 3:20PM 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...
