List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

bizarre
Assistant
Posts: 566
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:35 am

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by bizarre »

I'm predicting the 9-film shortlist to be: France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Palestine, Poland and Switzerland, with a few submissions left to be announced. My nomination predictions are Italy, France, Israel, Hungary and Palestine with France for the win.
bizarre
Assistant
Posts: 566
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:35 am

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by bizarre »

Quite a few more updates. The only regular submitters left to announce are China, Argentina and South Africa, plus Ghana, Honduras and the UAE who have said they will submit for the first time this year. Remains to be seen whether the following intermittent submitters will send something this year: Armenia, Australia, Chad, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ethiopia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mauritania, Moldova, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

With 22 female-directed or co-directed submissions this year, a record has almost definitely been set.
bizarre wrote:Afghanistan - "A Letter to the President" (Roya Sadat) - A female government official is imprisoned when she defends a woman from punishment by village lords, and writes the president for help. Surprising choice over another female filmmaker from the country (Shahrbanoo Sadat with 'Wolf and Sheep')
Albania - "Daybreak" (Gentian Koçi) - A young mother living in poverty takes on a caregiver role for a very old, ill woman, and finds that her own survival depends on that of her ward's
Algeria - "Road to Istanbul" (Rachid Bouchareb) - A woman sets off to find her daughter, who joined ISIS in Syria. Algeria had announced that it may not be able to submit this year, so this is an 11th-hour decision
Austria - "Happy End" (Michael Haneke) - An upper-crust family deteriorates against the backdrop of the European refugee crisis. Haneke's latest, middlingly-received at Cannes
Azerbaijan - "Pomegranate Orchard" (Ilgar Najaf) - prodigal-son-returns drama inspired by 'The Cherry Orchard'
Bangladesh - "Shona Bondhu" (Jahangir Alam Sumon) - Details are scant but this appears to be a village-set musical romantic comedy
Belgium - "Racer and the Jailbird' (Michaël R. Roskam) - romance between a gangster and a racing driver starring Matthias Schoenaerts and Adèle Exarchopoulos. Venice out-of-comp premiere
Bolivia - "Dark Skull" (Kiro Russo) - An atmospheric, abstract drama set in the world of tin miners in Western Bolivia
Bosnia & Herzegovina - "Men Don't Cry" (Alen Drljević) - A group of Yugoslav War vets doing group therapy
Brazil - "Bingo: The King of the Mornings" (Daniel Rezende) - A biopic about the actor who played Bozo the Clown in Brazil
Bulgaria - "Glory" (Kristina Grozeva & Petar Valchanov) - A railway trackman notifies his discovery of a large amount of money to the authorities, who use it as a PR stunt to deflect from a brewing government corruption scandal
Cambodia - "First They Killed My Father" (Angelina Jolie) - A true story about a 5 year-old girl who is drafted as a child soldier during the Khmer Rouge years in Cambodia. Based on the memoir by Loung Ung
Canada - "Hochelaga, Land of Souls" (François Girard) - A dramatisation of several centuries of Québécois history, framed through an archaeological dig prompted by the opening of a sinkhole in the modern day
Chile - "A Fantastic Woman" (Sebastián Lelio) - After her older boyfriend dies suddenly, a trans woman in Chile must fight for recognition of their relationship from both the law and his family. Has also generated big buzz for its lead actress Daniela Vega, who could be someone to watch for a nomination regardless of whether this is shortlisted
Colombia - "Guilty Men" (Iván Gaona) - Set in 2005, a trucker plays a cat-and-mouse game with a guerrilla paramilitary group while trying to connect with his lover
Croatia - "Quit Staring at My Plate" (Hana Jušić) - A withdrawn woman gets a chance to come out of her shell when her abusive father has a stroke
Czech Republic - "Ice Mother" (Bohdan Sláma) - A 67 year-old mother and grandmother goes through a 3/4-life crisis
Denmark - "You Disappear" (Peter Schønau Fog) - The story of a middle-aged couple whose lives are rocked when the husband is diagnosed with a brain tumour. Stars Trine Dyrholm and the late Michael Nyqvist, who died this year
Dominican Republic - "Woodpeckers" (José María Cabral) - Inmates in adjacent women's and men's prisons communicate by code, sparking a 'long-distance' romance
Ecuador - "Alba" (Ana Cristina Barragán) - An 11 year-old girl must move in with her father when her mother falls ill. The two must confront their distant relationship head-on
Egypt - "Sheikh Jackson" (Amr Salama) - A conservative imam with a private adoration for Michael Jackson spirals into a personal crisis after hearing the news of his idol's death. Sounds interesting!
Estonia - "November" (Rainer Sarnet) - A folkloric fantasy-romance about a peasant girl and a village boy in a 19th century Estonia populated by fairytale creatures
Finland - "Tom of Finland" (Dome Karukoski) - A biopic of the famed and influential gay erotic artist Tom of Finland
France - "BPM (Beats per Minute)" (Robin Campillo) - Grand Prix winner at Cannes this year, it tells the story of a group of AIDS activists working with ACT UP in the early 90s
Georgia - "Scary Mother" (Ana Urushadze) - A psychological thriller about a middle-class housewife who seeks an escape through writing an erotic novel
Germany - "In the Fade" (Fatih Akın) - A white woman seeks to avenge the murder of her Kurdish husband and son by neo-Nazis. Best Actress prize at Cannes for Diane Kruger
Greece - "Amerika Square" (Yannis Sakaridis) - A racist old man and a young tattoo artist in Athens find themselves thrown into conflict when a Syrian refugee enters their lives
Hong Kong - "Mad World" (Wong Chun) - A former financial analyst suffering from bipolar disorder is released from a mental institution into the care of his truck-driver father
Hungary - "On Body and Soul" (Enyedi Ildikó) - A man and a woman working in a slaughterhouse find an otherworldly romantic connection with each other through a recurring dream they both experience. Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin this year
Iceland - "Under the Tree" (Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson) - A quartet of neighbours find themselves in an escalating conflict over a tree that borders their properties. This black comedy got strong reviews at TIFF and has been picked up by Magnolia for a US release
India - "Newton" (Amit V Masurkar) - A black comedy about a government clerk tasked with holding fair elections in an Indian region beset by guerrilla forces
Indonesia - "Leftovers" (Wicaksono Wisnu Legowo) - Details the lives of several families living in a poor village in Central Java
Iran - "Breath" (Narges Abyar) - A young girl uses daydreaming and fantasy to cope with the tumultuous years between the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War
Iraq - "The Dark Wind" (Hussein Hassan) - Love story set during the ISIS seizure of Sinjar and their genocide of the Yazidi people
Ireland - "Song of Granite" (Pat Collins) - A biography of Irish folk songer Joe Heaney
Israel - "Foxtrot" (Samuel Maoz) - Caused a sensation at Venice this year. Tells parallel stories of an IDF soldier who is killed and of his parents in the wake of his death
Italy - "A Ciambra" (Jonas Carpignano) - A 14 year-old Romani boy in Calabria searches for his older brother after the brother disappears. Well-received at Cannes' Directors' Fortnight this year
Japan - "Her Love Boils Bathwater" (Ryōta Nakano) - A mother and housewife discovers she has terminal cancer and tries to work through her personal bucket list. Winner of the last Best Actress prize at the Japanese equivalent of the Oscars, for Rie Miyazawa.
Kazakhstan - "A Road to Mother" (Akan Satayev) - A mother walks to the outskirts of her village every dawn and dusk for twenty years in the hopes of meeting her son, missing in the wars of the 1930s
Kenya - "Kati Kati" (Mbithi Masya) - A young girl finds herself in a fantastical purgatory where she meets a variety of colourful characters
Kosovo - "Unwanted" (Edon Rizvanolli) - A Kosovar mother and son living in exile in the Netherlands after the Balkans War deal with social and personal crises
Kyrgyzstan - "Centaur" (Aktan Abdykalykov) - A former horse thief living in a Bishkek slum is given the opportunity for one more job, carrying with it the promise of local stardom
Laos - "Dearest Sister" (Mattie Do) - A supernatural horror film about a village woman who moves to the city to care for her progressively blind cousin, who can speak to ghosts. The main character exploits her cousin's gift for personal gain. Laos' first ever submission in this category
Latvia - "The Chronicles of Melanie" (Viesturs Kairišs) - A WWII-set drama about a mother and son fighting to survive in a Siberian gulag
Lebanon - "The Insult" (Ziad Doueiri) - A Lebanese Christian and the Palestinian refugee he hires to do home maintenance have a violent altercation that unravels into a nationally-covered court case. Recently premiered at Venice to solid reviews
Lithuania - "Frost" (Šarūnas Bartas) - Two Lithuanian aid workers travel through the war-torn Donbass region of Ukraine. Don't know what the point of submitting this was because there is no realm of possibility where the average Academy voter would respond to a Bartas film (I'm a pretty hardcore slow-cinema aficionado and even I have issues with his stuff), not to mention this one got particularly poor reviews
Luxembourg - "Barrage" (Laura Schroeder) - Three generations of a family find conflict and reconciliation over one turbulent weekend. Starring real-life mother-and-daughter duo Isabelle Huppert and Lolita Chammah (who have co-starred before in Marc Fitoussi's enjoyably 'Cocapabana' - worth it for a great comedic Huppert performance and character)
Mexico - "Tempestad" (Tatiana Huezo) - A documentary following the stories of two women who survived human trafficking in Mexico
Morocco - "Razzia" (Nabil Ayouch) - A 'kaleidoscopic drama' following five lives across 30 years of Moroccan history, all centred on the leadup to and the reverberating effects of the violent street protests of 2015 in Casablanca
Nepal - "White Sun" (Deepak Rauniyar) - Two brothers, who fought on opposite sides in the Nepali Civil War, return home to bury their dead father
Netherlands - "Layla M." (Mijke de Jong) - A Muslim woman in Amsterdam is radicalised by her husband but becomes disillusioned after they move into a fundamentalist cell in Jordan
Norway - "Thelma" (Joachim Trier) - A student in Oslo discovers she has supernatural powers
Pakistan - "Saawan" (Farhan Alam) - A disabled child fights for survival in the hostile deserts of Pakistan. This makes two Urdu-language submissions this year, after the UK's
Palestine - "Wajib" (Annemarie Jacir) - A father sets off on a road trip to deliver his daughter's wedding invitations alongside his estranged son. Stars real-life father and son Mohammad Bakri and Saleh Bakri
Panama - "Beyond Brotherhood" (Arianne Benedetti) - Two siblings fight to survive living on the streets
Paraguay - "Los buscadores" (Juan Carlos Maneglia & Tana Schembori) - A news boy discovers a Paraguayan War-era treasure map amongst his grandfather's belongings and decides to investigate the location of the purported treasure, now an embassy
Peru - "Rosa Chumbe" (Jonatan Relayze) - A policewoman cares for her grandson after her daughter steals money and abandons the baby
Philippines - "Birdshot" (Mikhail Red) - The daughter of a wildlife sanctuary caretaker accidentally kills an endangered Philippine eagle, leading to a game of cat-and-mouse with local authorities
Poland - "Spoor" (Agnieszka Holland) - An elderly woman living in isolation witnesses a series of murders, but the authorities refuse to believe her. Strong reviews at Berlin (for a Holland film), this could be a shortlist contender
Portugal - "Saint George" (Marco Martins) - Set during the height of the GFC in Portugal, an unemployed boxer must take a dangerous job with a debt-collection agency in order to support his family
Romania - "The Fixer" (Adrian Sitaru) - A journalist enters murky ethical territory while covering the story of an underage prostitute in Romania's capital
Russia - "Loveless" (Andrei Zvyagintsev) - A couple in the midst of divorce are thrown for a loop when their 12 year-old son goes missing. Won the Jury Prize at Cannes this year
Serbia - "Requiem for Mrs. J" (Bojan Vuletić) - A black-comedy about a widow planning to commit suicide on the anniversary of her husband's death
Singapore - "Pop Aye" (Kirsten Tan) - A big-city architect encounters an elephant he'd befriended in his childhood and sets off on a journey with his old pal back to his ancestral village
Slovakia - "The Line" (Peter Bebjak) - Set in 2007 before Slovakia joined the Schengen Zone, follows the exploits of a gang of smugglers moving contraband from Ukraine into the EU
Slovenia - "The Miner" (Hanna Antonina Wojcik-Slak) - A miner discovers a WWII mass grave, and must face his own conscience to make a decision after his boss pressures him to keep quiet
South Korea - "A Taxi Driver" (Jang Hoon) - An everyman taxi driver accidentally becomes involved with a reporter covering the events of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980. Stars Song Kang-ho and Thomas Kretschmann
Spain - "Summer 1993" (Carla Simón) - A young orphan girl goes to live with her uncle after her parents die of AIDS
Sweden - "The Square" (Ruben Östlund) - Social satire set in the European art world. Palme d'Or winner at Cannes this year
Switzerland - "The Divine Order" (Petra Biondina Volpe) - Centred around a women's rights activist fighting for suffrage in 1971 Switzerland (Switzerland was the last Western republic to grant women's suffrage)
Taiwan - "Small Talk" (Huang Hui-chen) - A documentary about the troubled relationship between the director and her estranged mother, a lesbian Taoist priestess who neglected her throughout her childhood
Thailand - "By the Time It Gets Dark" (Anocha Suwichakornpong) - An experimental political film about the production of a movie about a 1976 military massacre of student protestors in Bangkok
Tunisia - "The Last of Us" (Ala Eddine Slim) - An avant-garde fantasy about a refugee who has otherworldly experiences while trekking through the desert. No dialogue
Turkey - "Ayla: The Daughter of War" (Can Ulkay) - A Turkish soldier fighting in the Korean war becomes a surrogate father to an orphaned Korean girl
Ukraine - "Black Level" (Valentyn Vasyanovych) - A wedding photographer suffers a midlife crisis as his family falls apart
United Kingdom - "My Pure Land" (Sarmad Masud) - A mother and two daughters in Pakistan must defend their land from a band of 200 bandits
Uruguay - "Another History of the World" (Guillermo Casanova) - A pair of friends are torn apart when one is arrested for political dissent. The other must fight for his freedom
Venezuela - "El Inca" (Ignacio Castillo Cottin) - A story about the boxer Edwin Valero who committed suicide after killing his wife. This is an interesting and politicised choice in the wake of Maduro's attacks on the judiciary due to having been pulled from theatres in Venezuela due to a federal judge siding with Valero's family in a lawsuit against the filmmakers.
Vietnam - "Father and Son" (Lương Đình Dũng) - A poor boy with an incurable illness and his blind father live by a river, where the magic of nature and the pain of illness are examined from a child's point of view

Eligible countries that did not submit:
* Bhutan - Bhutan has not made any official statements yet - they haven't submitted since 1999 but were apparently readying a submission committee specifically for the well-received film "Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait" by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, though it was unexpectedly and controversially banned domestically by the Bhutanese government and will no longer meet the submission criteria, so it's unclear whether they'll still go forward with a submission for another film.
Macedonia - Macedonia has decided not to submit this year.
Montenegro - Montenegro announced that it did not receive enough qualifying submissions and has decided not to put forward a film for contention this year.

Expected to submit films for the first time this year are Ghana, Honduras, Laos and the United Arab Emirates.

So far, 22 of the submissions are directed by women, which may be a record in this category:
Afghanistan
Bulgaria
Cambodia
Croatia
Ecuador
Georgia
Hungary
Iran
Laos
Luxembourg
Mexico
Netherlands
Palestine
Panama
Paraguay
Poland
Singapore
Slovenia
Spain
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
anonymous1980
Laureate
Posts: 6377
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 10:03 pm
Location: Manila
Contact:

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by anonymous1980 »

The Philippines has picked Mikhail Red's Birdshot. It's about a young teenage girl who inadvertently kills a Philippine eagle, a critically endangered species and that kicks off a dark conspiracy of corruption. Personally I liked Respeto (superb film but you need to know a bit of Marcos martial law and the current political situation to completely "get" it) and Bliss (very Darren Aronofsky-meets-Almodovar-esque thriller, certainly not something an average AMPAS will like) better but this film has a shot at hitting that sweet spot. It's probably not getting in but you never know.
danfrank
Assistant
Posts: 907
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 2:19 pm
Location: Fair Play, CA

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by danfrank »

Precious Doll wrote: Russia has submitted Andrey Zvyagintsev's Loveless...
A win would seem unlikely given the nature of the subject matter.
A win would seem unlikely give the nature of attitudes toward anything having to do with Russia these days.
bizarre
Assistant
Posts: 566
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:35 am

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by bizarre »

Only a few countries left to announce their submissions at their point. Up to date additions below
bizarre wrote:Albania - "Daybreak" (Gentian Koçi) - A young mother living in poverty takes on a caregiver role for a very old, ill woman, and finds that her own survival depends on that of her ward's
Algeria - "Road to Istanbul" (Rachid Bouchareb) - A woman sets off to find her daughter, who joined ISIS in Syria. Algeria had announced that it may not be able to submit this year, so this is an 11th-hour decision
Austria - "Happy End" (Michael Haneke) - An upper-crust family deteriorates against the backdrop of the European refugee crisis. Haneke's latest, middlingly-received at Cannes
Azerbaijan - "Pomegranate Orchard" (Ilgar Najaf) - prodigal-son-returns drama inspired by 'The Cherry Orchard'
Belgium - "Racer and the Jailbird' (Michaël R. Roskam) - romance between a gangster and a racing driver starring Matthias Schoenaerts and Adèle Exarchopoulos. Venice out-of-comp premiere
Bolivia - "Dark Skull" (Kiro Russo) - An atmospheric, abstract drama set in the world of tin miners in Western Bolivia
Bosnia & Herzegovina - "Men Don't Cry" (Alen Drljević) - A group of Yugoslav War vets doing group therapy
Brazil - "Bingo: The King of the Mornings" (Daniel Rezende) - A biopic about the actor who played Bozo the Clown in Brazil
Bulgaria - "Glory" (Kristina Grozeva & Petar Valchanov) - A railway trackman notifies his discovery of a large amount of money to the authorities, who use it as a PR stunt to deflect from a brewing government corruption scandal
Cambodia - "First They Killed My Father" (Angelina Jolie) - A true story about a 5 year-old girl who is drafted as a child soldier during the Khmer Rouge years in Cambodia. Based on the memoir by Loung Ung
Chile - "A Fantastic Woman" (Sebastián Lelio) - After her older boyfriend dies suddenly, a trans woman in Chile must fight for recognition of their relationship from both the law and his family. Has also generated big buzz for its lead actress Daniela Vega, who could be someone to watch for a nomination regardless of whether this is shortlisted
Colombia - "Guilty Men" (Iván Gaona) - Set in 2005, a trucker plays a cat-and-mouse game with a guerrilla paramilitary group while trying to connect with his lover
Croatia - "Quit Staring at My Plate" (Hana Jušić) - A withdrawn woman gets a chance to come out of her shell when her abusive father has a stroke
Czech Republic - "Ice Mother" (Bohdan Sláma) - A 67 year-old mother and grandmother goes through a 3/4-life crisis
Denmark - "You Disappear" (Peter Schønau Fog) - The story of a middle-aged couple whose lives are rocked when the husband is diagnosed with a brain tumour. Stars Trine Dyrholm and the late Michael Nyqvist, who died this year
Dominican Republic - "Woodpeckers" (José María Cabral) - Inmates in adjacent women's and men's prisons communicate by code, sparking a 'long-distance' romance
Ecuador - "Alba" (Ana Cristina Barragán) - An 11 year-old girl must move in with her father when her mother falls ill. The two must confront their distant relationship head-on
Egypt - "Sheikh Jackson" (Amr Salama) - A conservative imam with a private adoration for Michael Jackson spirals into a personal crisis after hearing the news of his idol's death. Sounds interesting!
Estonia - "November" (Rainer Sarnet) - A folkloric fantasy-romance about a peasant girl and a village boy in a 19th century Estonia populated by fairytale creatures
Finland - "Tom of Finland" (Dome Karukoski) - A biopic of the famed and influential gay erotic artist Tom of Finland
France - "BPM (Beats per Minute)" (Robin Campillo) - Grand Prix winner at Cannes this year, it tells the story of a group of AIDS activists working with ACT UP in the early 90s
Georgia - "Scary Mother" (Ana Urushadze) - A psychological thriller about a middle-class housewife who seeks an escape through writing an erotic novel
Germany - "In the Fade" (Fatih Akın) - A white woman seeks to avenge the murder of her Kurdish husband and son by neo-Nazis. Best Actress prize at Cannes for Diane Kruger
Greece - "Amerika Square" (Yannis Sakaridis) - A racist old man and a young tattoo artist in Athens find themselves thrown into conflict when a Syrian refugee enters their lives
Hong Kong - "Mad World" (Wong Chun) - A former financial analyst suffering from bipolar disorder is released from a mental institution into the care of his truck-driver father
Hungary - "On Body and Soul" (Enyedi Ildikó) - A man and a woman working in a slaughterhouse find an otherworldly romantic connection with each other through a recurring dream they both experience. Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin this year
Iceland - "Under the Tree" (Hafsteinn Gunnar Sigurðsson) - A quartet of neighbours find themselves in an escalating conflict over a tree that borders their properties. This black comedy got strong reviews at TIFF and has been picked up by Magnolia for a US release
India - "Newton" (Amit V Masurkar) - A black comedy about a government clerk tasked with holding fair elections in an Indian region beset by guerrilla forces
Indonesia - "Leftovers" (Wicaksono Wisnu Legowo) - Details the lives of several families living in a poor village in Central Java
Iran - "Breath" (Narges Abyar) - A young girl uses daydreaming and fantasy to cope with the tumultuous years between the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War
Iraq - "The Dark Wind" (Hussein Hassan) - Love story set during the ISIS seizure of Sinjar and their genocide of the Yazidi people
Ireland - "Song of Granite" (Pat Collins) - A biography of Irish folk songer Joe Heaney
Israel - "Foxtrot" (Samuel Maoz) - Caused a sensation at Venice this year. Tells parallel stories of an IDF soldier who is killed and of his parents in the wake of his death
Japan - "Her Love Boils Bathwater" (Ryōta Nakano) - A mother and housewife discovers she has terminal cancer and tries to work through her personal bucket list. Winner of the last Best Actress prize at the Japanese equivalent of the Oscars, for Rie Miyazawa.
Kazakhstan - "A Road to Mother" (Akan Satayev) - A mother walks to the outskirts of her village every dawn and dusk for twenty years in the hopes of meeting her son, missing in the wars of the 1930s
Kosovo - "Unwanted" (Edon Rizvanolli) - A Kosovar mother and son living in exile in the Netherlands after the Balkans War deal with social and personal crises
Kyrgyzstan - "Centaur" (Aktan Abdykalykov) - A former horse thief living in a Bishkek slum is given the opportunity for one more job, carrying with it the promise of local stardom
Laos - "Dearest Sister" (Mattie Do) - A supernatural horror film about a village woman who moves to the city to care for her progressively blind cousin, who can speak to ghosts. The main character exploits her cousin's gift for personal gain. Laos' first ever submission in this category
Latvia - "The Chronicles of Melanie" (Viesturs Kairišs) - A WWII-set drama about a mother and son fighting to survive in a Siberian gulag
Lebanon - "The Insult" (Ziad Doueiri) - A Lebanese Christian and the Palestinian refugee he hires to do home maintenance have a violent altercation that unravels into a nationally-covered court case. Recently premiered at Venice to solid reviews
Lithuania - "Frost" (Šarūnas Bartas) - Two Lithuanian aid workers travel through the war-torn Donbass region of Ukraine. Don't know what the point of submitting this was because there is no realm of possibility where the average Academy voter would respond to a Bartas film (I'm a pretty hardcore slow-cinema aficionado and even I have issues with his stuff), not to mention this one got particularly poor reviews
Luxembourg - "Barrage" (Laura Schroeder) - Three generations of a family find conflict and reconciliation over one turbulent weekend. Starring real-life mother-and-daughter duo Isabelle Huppert and Lolita Chammah (who have co-starred before in Marc Fitoussi's enjoyably 'Cocapabana' - worth it for a great comedic Huppert performance and character)
Mexico - "Tempestad" (Tatiana Huezo) - A documentary following the stories of two women who survived human trafficking in Mexico
Morocco - "Razzia" (Nabil Ayouch) - A 'kaleidoscopic drama' following five lives across 30 years of Moroccan history, all centred on the leadup to and the reverberating effects of the violent street protests of 2015 in Casablanca
Nepal - "White Sun" (Deepak Rauniyar) - Two brothers, who fought on opposite sides in the Nepali Civil War, return home to bury their dead father
Netherlands - "Layla M." (Mijke de Jong) - A Muslim woman in Amsterdam is radicalised by her husband but becomes disillusioned after they move into a fundamentalist cell in Jordan
Norway - "Thelma" (Joachim Trier) - A student in Oslo discovers she has supernatural powers
Pakistan - "Saawan" (Farhan Alam) - A disabled child fights for survival in the hostile deserts of Pakistan. This makes two Urdu-language submissions this year, after the UK's
Palestine - "Wajib" (Annemarie Jacir) - A father sets off on a road trip to deliver his daughter's wedding invitations alongside his estranged son. Stars real-life father and son Mohammad Bakri and Saleh Bakri
Panama - "Beyond Brotherhood" (Arianne Benedetti) - Two siblings fight to survive living on the streets
Peru - "Rosa Chumbe" (Jonatan Relayze) - A policewoman cares for her grandson after her daughter steals money and abandons the baby
Poland - "Spoor" (Agnieszka Holland) - An elderly woman living in isolation witnesses a series of murders, but the authorities refuse to believe her. Strong reviews at Berlin (for a Holland film), this could be a shortlist contender
Portugal - "Saint George" (Marco Martins) - Set during the height of the GFC in Portugal, an unemployed boxer must take a dangerous job with a debt-collection agency in order to support his family
Romania - "The Fixer" (Adrian Sitaru) - A journalist enters murky ethical territory while covering the story of an underage prostitute in Romania's capital
Russia - "Loveless" (Andrei Zvyagintsev) - A couple in the midst of divorce are thrown for a loop when their 12 year-old son goes missing. Won the Jury Prize at Cannes this year
Serbia - "Requiem for Mrs. J" (Bojan Vuletić) - A black-comedy about a widow planning to commit suicide on the anniversary of her husband's death
Singapore - "Pop Aye" (Kirsten Tan) - A big-city architect encounters an elephant he'd befriended in his childhood and sets off on a journey with his old pal back to his ancestral village
Slovakia - "The Line" (Peter Bebjak) - Set in 2007 before Slovakia joined the Schengen Zone, follows the exploits of a gang of smugglers moving contraband from Ukraine into the EU
Slovenia - "The Miner" (Hanna Antonina Wojcik-Slak) - A miner discovers a WWII mass grave, and must face his own conscience to make a decision after his boss pressures him to keep quiet
South Korea - "A Taxi Driver" (Jang Hoon) - An everyman taxi driver accidentally becomes involved with a reporter covering the events of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980. Stars Song Kang-ho and Thomas Kretschmann
Spain - "Summer 1993" (Carla Simón) - A young orphan girl goes to live with her uncle after her parents die of AIDS
Sweden - "The Square" (Ruben Östlund) - Social satire set in the European art world. Palme d'Or winner at Cannes this year
Switzerland - "The Divine Order" (Petra Biondina Volpe) - Centred around a women's rights activist fighting for suffrage in 1971 Switzerland (Switzerland was the last Western republic to grant women's suffrage)
Taiwan - "Small Talk" (Huang Hui-chen) - A documentary about the troubled relationship between the director and her estranged mother, a lesbian Taoist priestess who neglected her throughout her childhood
Thailand - "By the Time It Gets Dark" (Anocha Suwichakornpong) - An experimental political film about the production of a movie about a 1976 military massacre of student protestors in Bangkok
Turkey - "Ayla: The Daughter of War" (Can Ulkay) - A Turkish soldier fighting in the Korean war becomes a surrogate father to an orphaned Korean girl
Ukraine - "Black Level" (Valentyn Vasyanovych) - A wedding photographer suffers a midlife crisis as his family falls apart
United Kingdom - "My Pure Land" (Sarmad Masud) - A mother and two daughters in Pakistan must defend their land from a band of 200 bandits
Uruguay - "Another History of the World" (Guillermo Casanova) - A pair of friends are torn apart when one is arrested for political dissent. The other must fight for his freedom
Venezuela - "El Inca" (Ignacio Castillo Cottin) - A story about the boxer Edwin Valero who committed suicide after killing his wife. This is an interesting and politicised choice in the wake of Maduro's attacks on the judiciary due to having been pulled from theatres in Venezuela due to a federal judge siding with Valero's family in a lawsuit against the filmmakers.
Vietnam - "Father and Son" (Lương Đình Dũng) - A poor boy with an incurable illness and his blind father live by a river, where the magic of nature and the pain of illness are examined from a child's point of view

Eligible countries that did not submit:
* Bhutan - Bhutan has not made any official statements yet - they haven't submitted since 1999 but were apparently readying a submission committee specifically for the well-received film "Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait" by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, though it was unexpectedly and controversially banned domestically by the Bhutanese government and will no longer meet the submission criteria, so it's unclear whether they'll still go forward with a submission for another film.
Montenegro - Montenegro announced that it did not receive enough qualifying submissions and has decided not to put forward a film for contention this year.

Expected to submit films for the first time this year are Ghana, Honduras, Laos and the United Arab Emirates.

So far, 20 of the submissions are directed by women, which may be a record in this category:
Bulgaria
Cambodia
Croatia
Ecuador
Georgia
Hungary
Iran
Laos
Luxembourg
Mexico
Netherlands
Palestine
Panama
Poland
Singapore
Slovenia
Spain
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
User avatar
Precious Doll
Emeritus
Posts: 4453
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2003 2:20 am
Location: Sydney
Contact:

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by Precious Doll »

Russia has submitted Andrey Zvyagintsev's Loveless.

Another film I predicted though I did fear Putin might step in with some bogus choice as he has done in the past. I suppose Putin's time is occupied watching how the whole North Korean situation is playing out and the opportunity that should that situation escalate into some kind of conflict (more likely that it won't than it will though most experts believe a 1 in 4 to 5 chance it's all going to end badly) the Russian military exercises taking place near the Baltic states could be expanded to take Estonia, Latvia & Lithuania back into the Russian fold.

Anyway back to Loveless. A return to form for Zvyagintsev with this biting critique of Russia today with the divide between the haves and the have nots expanding, consumerism and the impact of religion on people's lives. The two central characters, a couple who are in the process of a divorcee and want to off load their 11 year son to an orphanage as they have their new 'lives' to go on with, only to have the child disappear.

It a gruelling and at time blackly funny but a rather disturbing piece to sit through. The settings, like those of Elena, play such an important part of the drama unfolding.

This will need the committee's help to have the shortlist and a nomination in the final five would be fully deserved. A win would seem unlikely given the nature of the subject matter.
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
User avatar
Sonic Youth
Tenured Laureate
Posts: 8003
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 8:35 pm
Location: USA

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by Sonic Youth »

India sends "Newton" to the Oscars.

http://variety.com/2017/film/asia/india ... 202566173/
"What the hell?"
Win Butler
bizarre
Assistant
Posts: 566
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:35 am

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by bizarre »

Of course there are still some big names - China, Russia, South Africa, Italy, India et al - to submit, but as it stands now here's the countries I'd predict for a shortlist. Putting 12 films down here to cover my bases:

Chile - A Fantastic Woman
France - BPM (Beats per Minute)
Germany - In the Fade
Hungary - On Body and Soul
Israel - Foxtrot
Lebanon - The Insult
Netherlands - Layla M.
Palestine - Wajib
Poland - Spoor
Sweden - The Square
Switzerland - The Divine Order
Turkey - Ayla: The Daughter of War
User avatar
Precious Doll
Emeritus
Posts: 4453
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2003 2:20 am
Location: Sydney
Contact:

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by Precious Doll »

Two more films I've seen:

120 Beats Per Minute (BPM) (France) - predicted

This is a some ways a difficult film to discuss. Firstly it plays out like a fictionalised version of the 2012 U.S. documentary How To Survive A Plague which dealt directly with ACT-UP in the U.S. during the late 1980s/early 1990s. It even got nominated in the documentary category but lost to a somewhat phoney but entertaining documentary titled Searching for Sugarman. Interestingly after seeing 102 BPM I read an interview with director Robin Campillo who stated that he had not seen of How to Survive a Plague and his film was based on his personal involvement with ACT UP in France.

Certainly the scenes with ACT UP are the best and they are the ones that generate the most conflict, information and passion. The is rather twee when dealing with relationships and those take a while to kick in. By the time they do the characters don't turn out to be that interesting.

The film also feels somewhat irrelevant now which I could not say about Longtime Companion or the 2011 documentary We Were Here which take you back to that time rather uncomfortably. I particularly remembered watching We Were Here with so many terrible memories flooding back. Probably because one tends to move forward and not dwell on the past that cannot be changed, but it really hit home just how awful those times were.

And perhaps for me because 120 BPM never reaches those heights, and perhaps no film can these days can really do that effectively unless they are documentaries or they were made at the time (Longtime Companion, Savage Nights, Parting Glances, And the Band Played On).

What will be interesting is how this will play to audiences, because at the Melbourne Film Festival it was screen twice in large venues that were not well attended. How many people, particularly younger people, are interested in seeing what is now recent history.

Nomination wise it has a good a chance as any I suppose. I can't recall many overtly gay film even being nominated in this category. Strawberry & Chocolate (1994) from Cuba comes to mind, though a lot have been submitted over the years. This of course is pretty high profile, much admired at Cannes and receiving a great deal of acclaim.

Pop-Aye (Singapore) predicted

This is a film that sounded interesting and turned out to be rather dull and disengaging. Very little chance of a nomination I would like to think.
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
Uri
Adjunct
Posts: 1230
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 11:37 pm
Location: Israel

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by Uri »

Foxtrot is in. It won the Ophir last night (largely as a big Fuck You to our Culture minister). It was also acquired by Sony Pictures Classics, so a big Oscar campaign is on the horizon.

It's still an extremely unworthy film, but that's never a factor, I guess.
bizarre
Assistant
Posts: 566
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:35 am

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by bizarre »

Submissions are coming through at a clip now, so here's the list so far:
bizarre wrote:Albania - "Daybreak" (Gentian Koçi) - A young mother living in poverty takes on a caregiver role for a very old, ill woman, and finds that her own survival depends on that of her ward's
Algeria - "Road to Istanbul" (Rachid Bouchareb) - A woman sets off to find her daughter, who joined ISIS in Syria. Algeria had announced that it may not be able to submit this year, so this is an 11th-hour decision
Austria - "Happy End" (Michael Haneke) - An upper-crust family deteriorates against the backdrop of the European refugee crisis. Haneke's latest, middlingly-received at Cannes
Azerbaijan - "Pomegranate Orchard" (Ilgar Najaf) - prodigal-son-returns drama inspired by 'The Cherry Orchard'
Belgium - "Racer and the Jailbird' (Michaël R. Roskam) - romance between a gangster and a racing driver starring Matthias Schoenaerts and Adèle Exarchopoulos. Venice out-of-comp premiere
Bosnia & Herzegovina - "Men Don't Cry" (Alen Drljević) - A group of Yugoslav War vets doing group therapy
Brazil - "Bingo: The King of the Mornings" (Daniel Rezende) - A biopic about the actor who played Bozo the Clown in Brazil
Bulgaria - "Glory" (Kristina Grozeva & Petar Valchanov) - A railway trackman notifies his discovery of a large amount of money to the authorities, who use it as a PR stunt to deflect from a brewing government corruption scandal
Cambodia - "First They Killed My Father" (Angelina Jolie) - A true story about a 5 year-old girl who is drafted as a child soldier during the Khmer Rouge years in Cambodia. Based on the memoir by Loung Ung
Chile - "A Fantastic Woman" (Sebastián Lelio) - After her older boyfriend dies suddenly, a trans woman in Chile must fight for recognition of their relationship from both the law and his family. Has also generated big buzz for its lead actress Daniela Vega, who could be someone to watch for a nomination regardless of whether this is shortlisted
Colombia - "Guilty Men" (Iván Gaona) - Set in 2005, a trucker plays a cat-and-mouse game with a guerrilla paramilitary group while trying to connect with his lover
Croatia - "Quit Staring at My Plate" (Hana Jušić) - A withdrawn woman gets a chance to come out of her shell when her abusive father has a stroke
Czech Republic - "Ice Mother" (Bohdan Sláma) - A 67 year-old mother and grandmother goes through a 3/4-life crisis
Dominican Republic - "Woodpeckers" (José María Cabral) - Inmates in adjacent women's and men's prisons communicate by code, sparking a 'long-distance' romance
Egypt - "Sheikh Jackson" (Amr Salama) - A conservative imam with a private adoration for Michael Jackson spirals into a personal crisis after hearing the news of his idol's death. Sounds interesting!
Estonia - "November" (Rainer Sarnet) - A folkloric fantasy-romance about a peasant girl and a village boy in a 19th century Estonia populated by fairytale creatures
Finland - "Tom of Finland" (Dome Karukoski) - A biopic of the famed and influential gay erotic artist Tom of Finland
France - "BPM (Beats per Minute)" (Robin Campillo) - Grand Prix winner at Cannes this year, it tells the story of a group of AIDS activists working with ACT UP in the early 90s
Georgia - "Scary Mother" (Ana Urushadze) - A psychological thriller about a middle-class housewife who seeks an escape through writing an erotic novel
Germany - "In the Fade" (Fatih Akın) - A white woman seeks to avenge the murder of her Kurdish husband and son by neo-Nazis. Best Actress prize at Cannes for Diane Kruger
Greece - "Amerika Square" (Yannis Sakaridis) - A racist old man and a young tattoo artist in Athens find themselves thrown into conflict when a Syrian refugee enters their lives
Hungary - "On Body and Soul" (Enyedi Ildikó) - A man and a woman working in a slaughterhouse find an otherworldly romantic connection with each other through a recurring dream they both experience. Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlin this year
Indonesia - "Leftovers" (Wicaksono Wisnu Legowo) - Details the lives of several families living in a poor village in Central Java
Iran - "Breath" (Narges Abyar) - A young girl uses daydreaming and fantasy to cope with the tumultuous years between the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War
Iraq - "The Dark Wind" (Hussein Hassan) - Love story set during the ISIS seizure of Sinjar and their genocide of the Yazidi people
Ireland - "Song of Granite" (Pat Collins) - A biography of Irish folk songer Joe Heaney
Japan - "Her Love Boils Bathwater" (Ryōta Nakano) - A mother and housewife discovers she has terminal cancer and tries to work through her personal bucket list. Winner of the last Best Actress prize at the Japanese equivalent of the Oscars, for Rie Miyazawa.
Kosovo - "Unwanted" (Edon Rizvanolli) - A Kosovar mother and son living in exile in the Netherlands after the Balkans War deal with social and personal crises
Laos - "Dearest Sister" (Mattie Do) - A supernatural horror film about a village woman who moves to the city to care for her progressively blind cousin, who can speak to ghosts. The main character exploits her cousin's gift for personal gain. Laos' first ever submission in this category
Latvia - "The Chronicles of Melanie" (Viesturs Kairišs) - A WWII-set drama about a mother and son fighting to survive in a Siberian gulag
Lebanon - "The Insult" (Ziad Doueiri) - A Lebanese Christian and the Palestinian refugee he hires to do home maintenance have a violent altercation that unravels into a nationally-covered court case. Recently premiered at Venice to solid reviews
Lithuania - "Frost" (Šarūnas Bartas) - Two Lithuanian aid workers travel through the war-torn Donbass region of Ukraine. Don't know what the point of submitting this was because there is no realm of possibility where the average Academy voter would respond to a Bartas film (I'm a pretty hardcore slow-cinema aficionado and even I have issues with his stuff), not to mention this one got particularly poor reviews
Luxembourg - "Barrage" (Laura Schroeder) - Three generations of a family find conflict and reconciliation over one turbulent weekend. Starring real-life mother-and-daughter duo Isabelle Huppert and Lolita Chammah (who have co-starred before in Marc Fitoussi's enjoyably 'Cocapabana' - worth it for a great comedic Huppert performance and character)
Mexico - "Tempestad" (Tatiana Huezo) - A documentary following the stories of two women who survived human trafficking in Mexico
Morocco - "Razzia" (Nabil Ayouch) - A 'kaleidoscopic drama' following five lives across 30 years of Moroccan history, all centred on the leadup to and the reverberating effects of the violent street protests of 2015 in Casablanca
Nepal - "White Sun" (Deepak Rauniyar) - Two brothers, who fought on opposite sides in the Nepali Civil War, return home to bury their dead father
Netherlands - "Layla M." (Mijke de Jong) - A Muslim woman in Amsterdam is radicalised by her husband but becomes disillusioned after they move into a fundamentalist cell in Jordan
Norway - "Thelma" (Joachim Trier) - A student in Oslo discovers she has supernatural powers
Pakistan - "Saawan" (Farhan Alam) - A disabled child fights for survival in the hostile deserts of Pakistan. This makes two Urdu-language submissions this year, after the UK's
Palestine - "Wajib" (Annemarie Jacir) - A father sets off on a road trip to deliver his daughter's wedding invitations alongside his estranged son. Stars real-life father and son Mohammad Bakri and Saleh Bakri
Panama - "Beyond Brotherhood" (Arianne Benedetti) - Two siblings fight to survive living on the streets
Peru - "Rosa Chumbe" (Jonatan Relayze) - A policewoman cares for her grandson after her daughter steals money and abandons the baby
Poland - "Spoor" (Agnieszka Holland) - An elderly woman living in isolation witnesses a series of murders, but the authorities refuse to believe her. Strong reviews at Berlin (for a Holland film), this could be a shortlist contender
Portugal - "Saint George" (Marco Martins) - Set during the height of the GFC in Portugal, an unemployed boxer must take a dangerous job with a debt-collection agency in order to support his family
Romania - "The Fixer" (Adrian Sitaru) - A journalist enters murky ethical territory while covering the story of an underage prostitute in Romania's capital
Serbia - "Requiem for Mrs. J" (Bojan Vuletić) - A black-comedy about a widow planning to commit suicide on the anniversary of her husband's death
Singapore - "Pop Aye" (Kirsten Tan) - A big-city architect encounters an elephant he'd befriended in his childhood and sets off on a journey with his old pal back to his ancestral village
Slovenia - "The Miner" (Hanna Antonina Wojcik-Slak) - A miner discovers a WWII mass grave, and must face his own conscience to make a decision after his boss pressures him to keep quiet
South Korea - "A Taxi Driver" (Jang Hoon) - An everyman taxi driver accidentally becomes involved with a reporter covering the events of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980. Stars Song Kang-ho and Thomas Kretschmann
Spain - "Summer 1993" (Carla Simón) - A young orphan girl goes to live with her uncle after her parents die of AIDS
Sweden - "The Square" (Ruben Östlund) - Social satire set in the European art world. Palme d'Or winner at Cannes this year
Switzerland - "The Divine Order" (Petra Biondina Volpe) - Centred around a women's rights activist fighting for suffrage in 1971 Switzerland (Switzerland was the last Western republic to grant women's suffrage)
Thailand - "By the Time It Gets Dark" (Anocha Suwichakornpong) - An experimental political film about the production of a movie about a 1976 military massacre of student protestors in Bangkok
Turkey - "Ayla: The Daughter of War" (Can Ulkay) - A Turkish soldier fighting in the Korean war becomes a surrogate father to an orphaned Korean girl
Ukraine - "Black Level" (Valentyn Vasyanovych) - A wedding photographer suffers a midlife crisis as his family falls apart
United Kingdom - "My Pure Land" (Sarmad Masud) - A mother and two daughters in Pakistan must defend their land from a band of 200 bandits
Venezuela - "El Inca" (Ignacio Castillo Cottin) - A story about the boxer Edwin Valero who committed suicide after killing his wife. This is an interesting and politicised choice in the wake of Maduro's attacks on the judiciary due to having been pulled from theatres in Venezuela due to a federal judge siding with Valero's family in a lawsuit against the filmmakers.
Vietnam - "Father and Son" (Lương Đình Dũng) - A poor boy with an incurable illness and his blind father live by a river, where the magic of nature and the pain of illness are examined from a child's point of view

Eligible countries that did not submit:
* Bhutan - Bhutan has not made any official statements yet - they haven't submitted since 1999 but were apparently readying a submission committee specifically for the well-received film "Hema Hema: Sing Me a Song While I Wait" by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche, though it was unexpectedly and controversially banned domestically by the Bhutanese government and will no longer meet the submission criteria, so it's unclear whether they'll still go forward with a submission for another film.
Montenegro - Montenegro announced that it did not receive enough qualifying submissions and has decided not to put forward a film for contention this year.

Expected to submit films for the first time this year are Ghana, Honduras, Laos and the United Arab Emirates.

So far, 18 of the submissions are directed by women, which may be a record in this category:
Bulgaria
Cambodia
Croatia
Georgia
Hungary
Iran
Laos
Luxembourg
Mexico
Netherlands
Palestine
Panama
Poland
Singapore
Slovenia
Spain
Switzerland
Thailand
User avatar
Precious Doll
Emeritus
Posts: 4453
Joined: Mon Jan 13, 2003 2:20 am
Location: Sydney
Contact:

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by Precious Doll »

A lot much submissions this week including three that I predicated and have seen.

A Fantastic Woman (Chile)

Many people, including myself, did predict that Sebastian Lelio's Gloria would score a (justified) nomination in this category a few years back. But as is the way with this with the Academy and its selection process thare are very few short bets. This time however, given the subject matter, Sony's backing and transexuals being very much at the forefront of the media I'd be very surprise if this doesn't make the final 9 and then 5 for that matter. It's also worth noting that whilst Daniela Vega looked a strong possibility for a best actress nomination that has probably now turned into a pip dream as Venice and Toronto have given Academy members a wealth of English speaking performance to pick from which is what they prefer. Vega did need and more so now major critics awards showered upon her (some of which will probably go Cynthia Nixon's way) so make it but given the rather poor standing of international cinema this year A Fantastic Woman could come out as the winner ultimate winner (The Square may make the final 5 but despite being the best foreign language film I have seen this year it is not taking the Oscar. Refer to Toni Erdmann). This would also be seen as a win for Vega. I can't wait to see A Fantastic Woman again myself I was entranced with Vega and her journey though I must admit there have been some detractors.

Spoor (Poland)

Knowing I number of people who have also seen this film I have found the reactions to be very diverse. I found the film difficult to get into but once I got into it's grove and the utter madness of it made more sense to me and I happily went on the journey. Taking to some other people who have a seen Spoor I'm finding completely diverse opinions on it. Some like the earlier parts of the film and hate it once it starts going over the top and outlandish. It 's not for everyone but it fairness people need to decide for themselves,. This one could go either way.

Saint George (Portugal)

mlrg has already covered Saint George. I didn't think it had the rigger to bring the story into the an engaging experience. It does come up with a powerful ending that felt disconnected from the main themes of the story. Little chance.
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
User avatar
OscarGuy
Site Admin
Posts: 13668
Joined: Wed Jan 01, 2003 12:22 am
Location: Springfield, MO
Contact:

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by OscarGuy »

Poland has submitted Agnieska Holland's Spoor.
Wesley Lovell
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both." - Benjamin Franklin
mlrg
Associate
Posts: 1747
Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 11:19 am
Location: Lisbon, Portugal

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by mlrg »

Portugal's official submission is "Saint George" directed by Marco Martins

In 2011 Portugal began the so-called "year of the Troika" (EU, IMF and ECB budget cuts and economic restructuring), with the level of debt among the Portuguese people reaching staggering amounts and a growing number of families and companies unable to repay their installment loans. Jorge is an unemployed boxer on the verge of losing his son and his wife, who has decided to return to Brazil. As a means of paying off his debt and persuading his wife to remain in Portugal, Jorge accepts a job with a debt-collection agency, which will drag him into a world of violence and crime.
bizarre
Assistant
Posts: 566
Joined: Sat Sep 03, 2011 9:35 am

Re: List of submissions to the 90th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film (coming soon)

Post by bizarre »

Have updated the body post below (or on the next page by this point) with short synopses of all films submitted so far.
Post Reply

Return to “90th Predictions and Precursors”