Best Foreign Language Film Submissions

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ITALIANO
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Post by ITALIANO »

Yes, it certainly doesn't sound like the typical Oscar-friendly movie.

I had forgotten that Water had been submitted by Canada. The rules obviously changed in 2006 then, because the year before the Italian entry Private, set in Israel and with Hebrew-speaking actors, had been rejected.
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Post by rain Bard »

The rules did change about five years ago or so, which is why Canada was able to get a nomination for the Hindi-language Water.

The film is indeed set around Rome, and with an Italian-speaking cast. One of the co-directors is Austrian, however, and the film is some kind of co-production.

It's a pretty moot point, however. Despite a naturalistic performance by an absolutely adorable little tyke, the film has an ambiguous ending and a Dardenne-esque aesthetic that I'm almost certain will preclude much success with the Oscar voters.
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Post by ITALIANO »

By the way, I still haven't seen the Austrian entry (a coproduction with Italy) but I've heard that it's shot in Rome with a mostly Italian-speaking cast. Maybe the rules have changed.
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Post by rain Bard »

I agree with you about To Die Like A Man, Precious Doll. Terrific film that never felt overlong to me, but way too out there for the Academy.

I also loved the other "no-hoper" on my list, a Useful Life. But I can't see the Academy going for a 65-minute black-and-white film about the demise of a cinematheque, with the lead character a film critic playing a version of himself.

I see you put greater stock in Aftershock than I do. Though the film's overall impact is very strong, I do wonder if its reliance on soap-opera-style cliches might not turn off the selection committee- I guess one could say that cliches have never stopped them before. However, a nomination or win for this film would also be the first time the Academy will have gone for a film about modern-day China. It will be interesting to follow the race once the selection narrowing starts to happen.
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Post by Precious Doll »

Using the same selection criteria as Rain Baird I'd rate the chances of the films I've seen as follows:

slam-dunk nominees/likely winners: China

decent-chance nominees/outside-chance winners: Czech Republic, Turkey

dark horse nominees/no-way winners: Greece, Romania, Thailand

impossible nominees/much less winners: Peru, Portugal

I would love to see To Die Like a Man make the final five but I know that that is not going to happen. I really can't see the Academy responding to 134 gritty minutes of tranny angst from the 'enfant terrible' of Portuguese cinema.
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Post by rain Bard »

I've seen a record number for me as well: 7. of those, here are my predictions how they might do with the Academy:

slam-dunk nominees/likely winners: none

decent-chance nominees/outside-chance winners: Argentina, China

dark horse nominees/no-way winners: Austria, Greece, Thailand

impossible nominees/much less winners: Portugal, Uruguay
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Post by Precious Doll »

I have updated the list below to include further announcements over the last few days. I think the list may now be complete.

To my surprise I have seen 8 of the submitted films which must be a record. I've usually only seen 3 or 4.




Edited By Precious Doll on 1286193104
"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)
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Post by Hustler »

Carancho submitted for Oscar

BUENOS AIRES -- Just hours away before the Academy's deadline for countries to submit films for Oscar consideration, the Argentine Film Academy announced on Friday that Pablo Trapero's crime thriller "Carancho" was selected as the Argentine candidate to nab a foreign-language Oscar nomination.

The election featured a rather low participation (only 78 of the Academy's 246 members) and resulted in Trapero's thriller winning the slot with 20 votes that placed it over its two main competitors, Mariano Cohn and Gaston Duprat's "The Man Next Door" (13) and Daniel Burman's "Dos hermanos" (10).

Produced by Matanza Cine (Argentina) in association with Patagonik, Ad Vitam Production (France), L90 Producciones (Chile) and Fine Cut (South Korea), "Carancho" faces the difficult challenge of repeating the feat of "The Secret in Their Eyes," the film directed by Argentine Film Academy President Juan Jose Campanella that took home the Oscar in the last edition.

Starring Argentine star Ricardo Darin and rising actress Martina Gusman (Trapero's wife and also the film's executive producer), "Carancho" stands distant from the high-budget, Hollywood-style elements of last winner "The Secret in Their Eyes," which also starred Darin.

With some very different and more realistic approaches, the story takes place in the rough settings of the Buenos Aires suburbs and involves an ambulance-chasing lawyer (Darin) and a young paramedic (Gusman) who get involved after one of the accidents he regularly stages to cash-in a cut of the victim's compensation goes terribly wrong. The film's raw and violent story is embedded against Argentina's outrageous statistics on car-crash related fatalities (22 per day, 8,000 a year), which is reportedly the main cause of death among people under 35 as well as a huge market for insurance fraud.

Earlier this year, the film premiered in Cannes' Un Certain Regard section and was later picked up by Strand Releasing for an early 2011 U.S. release, which some believe could favorably balance "Carancho's" chances to bring home Argentina's third Oscar, after "The Secret in Their Eyes" and Luis Puenzo's "The Official Story," winner of the category in 1985.
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Post by Reza »

The entry from India.......the third consecutive Aamir Khan (of Lagaan fame) production to be submitted. Here are reviews by The San Francisco Chronicle and The Times.


Peepli Live
Indian satire. Directed by Anusha Rizvi. In Hindi and English with English subtitles. (Not rated. 106 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)


According to Indian government statistics, some 200,000 farmers committed suicide in a decade long period (1997-2007), as India undergoes a long and painful shift from an agrarian to an industrialized, urban-centered society. Poverty, the reason for most of the suicides, is an epidemic, and the government began compensating families of suicide victims $2,000 - a relatively hefty sum - for each suicide.

So suddenly we have a situation where, if you're a farmer, you might be worth more to your family dead than alive.

That is the issue satirically examined by former journalist Anusha Rizvi in her feature debut, "Peepli Live," in which a farmer, Natha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) threatens to commit suicide and becomes a pawn of politicians running for re-election and a media frenzy eager for a ratings bonanza.

The film, produced by Bollywood megastar Aamir Khan (who does not act in the film), gets a small U.S. release on the same day - today - it opens in India. In January, it became the first film from India to be invited to play at the Sundance Film Festival.

The concept of a country bumpkin becoming a national story and manipulated by politicians and media is a tradition in Hollywood films that includes "Meet John Doe," "Ace in the Hole," "A Face in the Crowd" and, most recently, Kevin Costner in "Swing Vote." So though "Peepli Live" might seem fresh and current to Indian cinemagoers, it can't escape a certain predictability to Westerners.

I liked "Peepli Live," which is colorful and at times quite lively, but I wish it were funnier and its satirical edge a bit sharper. It also takes too long to kick into high gear; the media frenzy doesn't begin until some 40 minutes into the movie, and when it does, Rizvi has so many characters to juggle she gets bogged down directing traffic. She also, like the media and politicians she satirizes, loses focus on Natha as a human being.

Still, there's pleasure to be had in Manikpuri's performance and that of Raghubir Yadav, who plays Natha's hapless brother, as well as beautiful Malaika Shenoy as a career-minded TV reporter who stokes the story.




Movie Review
Peepli Live


A Sendup of India Politics and News
By RACHEL SALTZ
Published: August 12, 2010

What do you if you’re a debt-ridden farmer about to lose your land? If you’re the brothers Naatha (Omkar Das Manikpuri) and Budhia (Raghubir Yadav), you opt to take a politician’s advice: one of you — Budhia chooses Naatha — will commit suicide, thus guaranteeing your family a government subsidy.

That’s the premise of “Peepli Live,” a fitfully amusing Indian comedy that touches on a hot-button topic — the country’s rash of farmer suicides — as it skewers a hidebound bureaucracy (no one can figure out a way to get money to the brothers that doesn’t involve one of them offing himself) and the predatory news organizations that swoop into the village of Peepli to capture Naatha’s death live.

The writer-director Anusha Rizvi, making her feature debut, shoots her story efficiently and with visual panache, but after a compelling setup her script runs out of juice. She gives the newscasters — modern city folk with practiced off-and-on empathy and inane, if occasionally hilarious, ideas about rural life — center stage, though they’re her least interesting satiric target. (They’re also probably what she knows best. She worked for four years at the Indian news channel NDTV.)

“Peepli” has no stars, though it was produced by one: Aamir Khan, who took it to Sundance last winter. Still, Mr. Manikpuri and Mr. Yadav ably fill that void as Naatha and Budhia. They’re the poker-faced centers of a swirling storm that Ms. Rizvi lets wash over them a little too thoroughly.

PEEPLI LIVE

Opens on Friday in New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and San Francisco.

Written and directed by Anusha Rizvi; director of photography, Shanker Raman; edited by Hemanti Sarkar; score by Mathias Duplessy, songs by Indian Ocean; production designer, Suman Roy Mahapatra; costumes by Maxima Basu; produced by Aamir Khan and Kiran Rao; released by UTV Motion Pictures. In English and Hindi, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. This film is not rated.

WITH: Omkar Das Manikpuri (Natha), Raghubir Yadav (Budhia), Nawazuddin Siddiqui (Rakesh), Shalini Vatsa (Daniya), Farrukh Jaffer (Amma) and Malaika Shenoy (Nandita).




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Post by ITALIANO »

As always, in Italy, the selection of the Foreign Film candidate is long, contrasted, and when the movie is finally chosen it's front page news (does this happen in other countries? I doubt). The appointed director feels the responsability of having all Italy behind him and leaves to America to promote his movie as if he's on a holy mission; suddenly, even if he's intelligent he starts saying banal things, even if he's always been anti-American he becomes America's number 1 fan, etc, Interesting, though not exactly something to be proud of - and not always effective, or at least not in recent years. Gone are the days when Italy could send a movie like Viva Italia! and end up in the final five - now it's become more difficult, or maybe it's simply Italian cinema which is not as appreciated as it was before (I was almost saying "not as good", but that's not really the point).

The committee tries its best. And the Academy, let's face it, is unpredictable. In the recent years, Italy has sent at least one very good movie - Gomorra, though in retrospect the even better Il Divo would have been a more intelligent choice - and some kind-of-good ones. No nominations. We also sent a downright bad movie once - an incest story called Don't Tell; when I heard the news I thought the committee had gone truly crazy this time. Needless to say, Don't Tell WAS nominated for Best Foreign Film. So you never know,

This time there were ten semi-finalists. Some didn't have a chance of course. One, the David di Donatello winner for Best Picture, was thought (rightly, I must say) to be good for Italy but not good for the US. Another - which I would have probably picked - was a gay-themed movie which had been hugely successful here; not a masterpiece, but very well done, and despite some male-to-male kissing very mainstream; plus, it was shot in sunny Southern Italy (and in one of our most beautiful cities, Lecce), a conventional setting maybe but certainly THE Italy that Americans love to see. Yet, probably because the director isn't Italian-born, it wasn't chosen.

In the end, it was between two movies. Luca Guadagnino's I Am Love had been a flop at the box-office (I haven't even had the chance of seeing it) and not much liked by critics either - but it was seriously considered because, it seems, it had been distributed in the US and got good reviews there. Paolo Virzi's The First Beautiful Thing, is a well-told story about an Italian institution - mother. It's a popular movie here, which doesn't mean, of course, that it's a great movie (it isn't). But it's not stupid, it has laughs, it has tears - it's the one the committee picked, and in a so-so year, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up with a nomination.




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Post by HarryGoldfarb »

Marcel Rasquin´s first feature "Hermano" has caused a strong impression here in Venezuela. For some reason it has become something like a cult film with an amazing degree of positive popular response. The critics has responded alike and a special comittee choose it over 7 other films to represent the country for the Oscar. This has been a very good year for Venezuelan films, at least locally... For some weeks the top-grossing films have included at least 2 Venezuelan pictures and that is quite unprecedent.

But this wave of localism has some interesting reasons. This trending in supporting "our" own films can be explained by the pedigree achieved by some of these films internationally. "Hermano" won the 2010 Moscow International Film Festival award for Best Film and also the Public´s Choice Award, so when it was finally released in the local theaters people was eager to see it... Twitter and some other social networks helped in promoting the film like a viral thing. However, the worst thing about this tiny little film might be the expectations it can generate...

My favorite Venezuelan film this year was Fina Torres´s "Habana Eva", a film I can recommend whole-heartedly, a romantic comedy with a twist, a tiny subttle one, but effective in the end. Enjoyable, unpretentious and interesting enough to overcome by itself its own weakness. It won the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival award for Best Picture (where "Hermano" took the Audience Award). But "Hermano" seemed the logic choice for the Academy, at least "in the paper". A more traditional approach to a simple story which major value is not to be about the "barrio" (slum) but just happens on it (very much like my take on The Hurt Locker... It ain´t specifically about the war, just happens to happen there).

Venezuela, believe it or not, always creates this local expectation about getting a nod for the Oscar (I know for certainty we haven´t been any close to it considering the poor quality in our film industry, which has become worst every year). The only year we might have gotten anywhere near was 2005 but we cancelled ouserlves sending a minor film instead of Secuestro Express, a technically impressive film with an affecting screenplay and filled with very good performances... Apparently we didn't send it because of an "indirect" presidential order... sadly as it sounds! My definitely personal favorite Venezuelan film, as I have always said is 1985's Oriana, a winner in Cannes (Golden Camera) but I don't know for sure if we send it to the Academy... For my money the only 5-stars Venezuelan film so far...

"Hermano" is a nice little drama film, about two brothers in the uphill quest of accomplishing a common dream: playing professional football (soccer for the americans). In this base-ball country it is like an odditty. It pictures a believable side of Caracas (the extremely poorest part of it) but can be perceived manipulative and even corny. Contrary to the local popular expectations, I don't have any high hopes but let's see what happens this year...
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Post by Precious Doll »

Here is the most recent list of films submitted by their respective countries:

Afghanistan - Black Tulip
Albania - East, West, East
Algeria - Outside the Law
Argentina - Carancho
Austria - La Pivellina
Azerbaijan - Precinct
Bangladesh - Third Person Singular Number
Belgium - Illegal
Bosnia - Cirkus Columbia
Brazil - Lula, Son of Brazil
Bulgaria - Eastern Plays
Canada - Incendies
Chile - The Life of Fish
China - Aftershock
Colombia - The Crab Trap
Costa Rica - Of Love and Other Demons
Croatia - The Blacks
Czech Republic - Kawasaki's Rose
Denmark - In a Better World
Egypt - Messages from the Sea
Estonia - The Temptation of St. Tony
Finland - Steam of Life
France - Of Gods and Men
Germany - When We Leave
Greece - Dogtooth
Hong Kong - Echoes of Rainbow
Hungary - Bibliteque Pascal
Iceland - Mamma Gogo
India - Peepli Live
Indonesia - How Funny
Iraq - Son of Babylon
Iran - Farewell Baghdad
Israel - Human Resources Manager
Italy - The First Beautiful Thing
Japan - Confessions
Kazakhstan - Strayed
Latvia - Hong Kong Confidential
Macedonia - Mothers
Mexico - Biutiful
Netherland - Tirza
Nicaragua - La yuma
Norway - Angel
Peru - Undertow
Philippines - Noy
Poland - All That I Love
Portugal - To Die Like a Man
Puerto Rico - Mlente
Romania - If I Want to Whistle...I Whistle
Russia - The Edge
Serbia - Besa
Slovakia - The Border
Slovenia - 9:06
South Africa - Life, Above All
South Korea - A Barefoot Dream
Spain - Even the Rain
Sweden - Simple Simon
Switzerland - La petite chambre
Taiwan - Monga
Thailand - Uncle Boonme Who Can Recall His Past Lives
Turkey - Honey
Uruguay - A Useful Life
Venezuela - Hermano




Edited By Precious Doll on 1286192945
"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)
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