Oscars 2025: Analysis of 81 of the 85 International Feature Oscar Submissions

I’ve been covering the International Feature race since 2020 when I was able to see 87 of the whopping, record-breaking 93 submissions. Last year, I managed 88 of 88. This year I’ve been able to experience 81 of the 85 (not for lack of seeking links to the final 4—more on that below).

Note: I view every film in its entirety—some I’ve see more than once. And at the end of this piece, I reveal my short list predictions, preferences, and the best acting.

Last year I began my analysis by asking the Academy to consider increasing the International Feature category to allow for 10 nominations. With 85 entries this year and a cornucopia of extraordinary filmic achievements among them, I renew my plea. I also wonder if the rules shouldn’t be altered since the same countries (with few exceptions) are recognized year after year.

Here’s a stat to let sink in: the five countries with the most nominations and wins in the 68 years that the category has been competitive (honorary awards were given prior to 1956) are France (39 nominations, 12 wins, including 3 honorary), Italy (30 nominations, 14 wins, including 3 honorary), Germany (22 nominations, 4 wins), Spain (21 nominations, 4 wins), and Japan (18 nominations, 5 wins, including 3 honorary). Denmark follows with four wins with 15 nominations.

Last year the final five came from Italy (Io capitano), Germany (The Teacher’s Lounge), Spain (Society of the Snow), Japan (Perfect Days) and the UK (The Zone of Interest, the winner). Four out of those five same countries, once again, received nominations. And France made the short list with The Taste of Things and would have made the top 5 had they submitted Anatomy of a Fall! This year 3 out of 5 of the countries cited above are favored to make the short list for certain, France, Italy and Germany. So, basically, films where backers have the most money to spend on publicity are always the likely nominees. Don’t get me wrong, last year’s choices were outstanding—especially Italy and Spain–but there were also amazing films from countries rarely recognized, so many gems from Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

Besides the need to expand the number of nominees, the current International Feature rules warrant a rethink since members who volunteer to take part in first-round International voting only need to see an assigned set amount, “equitably distributed,” via the Academy Screening Room. Voters are then encouraged to watch as many of the non-assigned entries as they please. The number of ‘required-viewing’ films is never released by AMPAS, but I can’t imagine it’s more than 20.

I, boldly, suggest that members should have to watch at least one third of the submissions each year, which would make the process more equitable. If I can see 81, in a two-month period and still have a life, voters can watch 28. Yes, it would be more time consuming and reduce the number of those willing to take part, but as it stands now AMPAS does not release the number who do volunteer each year, so it could be 1000, 100 or 10.

The other option is to allow members to only vote on the films they are assigned. Perhaps a numerical rating?

Too many worthy films are completely overlooked each year so something needs to be done.

AMPAS members will always seek out the titles that are being touted most, ergo the projects with the biggest champions, publicists working overtime, AMPAS members holding screening–all this give those films a massive edge. So once again, Oscar Team, if you are reading,, find new ways to make the playing field fair.

The following four countries submitted but did not appear on the final list sent to voters:

China: The Sinking Of The Lisbon Maru (Fang Li)

Haiti: Kidnapping Inc. (Bruno Mourral)

Jordan: My Sweet Land (Sareen Hairabedian)

Uruguay: The Door Is There (Juan & Facundo Ponce de Leon)

China was disqualified because more than 50% of the film was in English. It is, however, eligible in the Documentary Feature category. Haiti and Uruguay submitted but did not make the final list–no reason given. Jordan withdrew its entry after political pressure from the nation of Azerbaijan, one might say they were  bullied into doing so. The good news is that My Sweet Land is still eligible for Best Documentary Feature. I’m including my take on this heartfelt doc at the end of this analysis.

The following four countries either refused access or would not return my many requests.

Argentina: Kill The Jockey (Luis Ortega)

Bangladesh: The Wrestler (Iqbal H Chowdhury)

Croatia: Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day (Ivona Juka)

Indonesia: Women From Rote Island (Jeremias Nyangoen)

The latter 3 never responded. Argentina’s reps, Protagonist Picture, after numerous requests, final sent the following message: “…We are not sharing press screeners at this time as we are still in the midst of wrapping up distribution deals.” This makes little sense since exposure would help in distribution negotiations. Ah, well.

I also want to thank journalist Rodrigo Gutierrez for his essential help and positivity.

Short list voting begins Dec. 9, 2024, at 9am PST and ends Dec. 13, 2024, at 5pm PST. The official Short List will be announced on Dec. 17, 2024.

Nominations voting begins Jan. 8, 2025, at 9am PST and ends Jan. 12, 2025, at 5pm PST. Oscar nominations are announced Friday, Jan. 17, 2025

Finally, a super plea for members to watch Armand (Norway), Waves (Czechia), Three Kilometres to the End of the World (Romania) and Come Closer (Israel)—four films not getting the traction they deserve!

Now, on to the 81 contenders I did see. And all are worth a look.

I have divided them into 8 sections this year:

• Simply The Best (in my highly subjective opinion)
• Likely to Make the Short List Part One (Deserved)
• Gems/Dark Horses That Should Be in the Conversation
• Likely to Make the Short List Part Two (Critic’s Darlings)
• Definitely Worthy of Consideration
• Worthy for Specific and Varying Reasons
• The Rest
• Not My Cup of Film Tea (Spit) But Maybe Yours?

Simply The Best

Brazil: I’m Still Here (Walter Salles)

A potent piece of cinema I’m Still Here is a devastating reminder of how easily any type of totalitarian takeover can occur and the dire consequences it can have for so many. See my review here:

NYFF62: ‘I’m Still Here’ Is a Powerful, Absorbing, Masterful Piece of Cinema

I’m Still Here is a strong contender from a filmmaker who one can argue is quite due. It’s one of 2024’s best films for certain and will make the short list.

Brazil’s submissions have been nominated 4 times with no wins, the last nomination in 1998 for Walter Salles’s Central Station.

This is Salles’s 4th Brasilian submission (A Grande Arte, Behind the Sun and Central Station).

This is Brazil’s 54th submission.

I’m Still Here will be in theaters in NY and LA on January 17, 2025, and nationwide on February 14, 2025, via Sony Pictures Classics.

Norway: Armand (Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel)

Norwegian writer-director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel has crafted a daring and brilliant work of cinematic art-also polarizing if the reviews out of Cannes were any indication—especially from the two idiosyncratic trade crix. Don’t listen to the naysayers, this film is astonishingly bold, ambitious and daring— one of 2024’s most audacious pics.

Just by virtue of having Renate Reinsve, the breakout star of 2022’s International Feature nominee The Worst Person in the World, as the lead, the film has a good shot at getting the recognition it deserves. And Reinsve does not disappoint, delivering a potent, magnetic turn as Elisabeth, a mother who’s six-year-old son, the titular Armand, is being accused of doing something pretty heinous to Jon, a fellow male student.

Elisabeth is an actress and single mom who has lost her husband and her career (the how and why of both are a mystery) and is summoned to the school by a very nervous newbie teacher, a worried headmaster and nose-bleeding counselor, without being told anything about why she’s there. Upon arrival, Elisabeth is confronted by the presence of her resentful sister-in law, Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Sarah’s husband Anders (Endre Hellestveit)—who also happen to be Jon’s parents. I don’t want to reveal much more except to say the wholly absorbing narrative is filled with many past-grudge and traumatic reveals as well as misinterpretations and manipulations but manages to remain enigmatic and ambiguous.

This is Tøndel’s first feature, and he already has his own style, using the camera as both observer and peeping tom. There are many mesmerizing surreal touches in this intensely claustrophobic film that is reminiscent of both Fran Kranz’s Mass, and Hirokazu Koreeda’s Monster as well as having a Bergmanesque feel—which makes sense since Tandel happens to be the grandson of Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman.

Some of the more bizarre moments may lose some viewers. I found most of them enhanced my understanding of the inner world of the characters, especially Elisabeth.

In one unforgettable sequence, Elisabeth bursts into non-stop laughter that seems to last forever and then she erupts into tears. No one in the room has a clue what to say or how to react. It’s beyond awkward and uncomfortable for everyone, including the viewer, until we realize it’s a primal scream of sorts, a release she’s been unable to manifest until now—calling bullshit on the kangaroo court in front of her–but, also–on the sequence of events that have led to where she is. A strange but entrancing dance sequence adds to the paradoxical nature of the lead character.

The gifted Reinsve does remarkable work here. It’s a performance that should be in the awards conversation.

Armand astutely exposes the new fear we are all living in as well as our current rush-to-judgement social attitude. My only complaint is that the film robs our central character of a confrontational reckoning moment.

Norway has garnered 6 nominations, no wins. The last nomination was 2021 for Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World.

This is Norway’s 46th submission.

Armand will be released by IFC Films in February 2025.

Czechia: Waves (Jiří Mádl) 

At its core Jiří Mádl’s ambitious, emotionally gripping and sweeping film, Waves, is the story of one brother needing to do what he must to protect his younger brother. Set against the backdrop of the student rebellions of 1968 (specifically the Prague Spring) as well as the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, this epic work is inspired by the true story of a gaggle of journalists from the International News Office of Czechoslovak Radio who courageously insisted on broadcasting independent news, not just as it was dictated to them by the communist regime but via outside western sources, to give the citizens a closer idea of the truths taking place in their politically torn country.

The film centers on Tomáš (Vojtěch Vodochodský), an apolitical worker who supports his 16-year-old brother Pavel (Ondřej Stupka), who secretly meets with fellow students to non-violently protest against the communist in power. In an odd, but wholly believable plot twist Tomáš finds himself working for the anti-communist Czech Radio as a technician. The journos continue to defy the government and Tomáš is targeted as a potential informant. Will he rat on his fellow reporters to protect his brother?

Waves is about journalistic integrity, heroism in the darkest and most difficult times and fighting a regime that means to crush free speech. It’s also about trying to hold on to some kind of ethical code in fearmongering times.

So much of the power of Mádl’s story (which he also wrote) comes from the specificity of the two main characters and their relationship to each other and to those around them. We come to care for them and believe in their brotherly bond. The personal enhances the political and social aspects of the film so we are completely invested.

Mádl’s film brings to mind the best of ‘70s thrillers, The Parallex View and All the President’s Men, specifically, both directed by the great Alan J. Pakula.

A recent box office sensation in Czechia, Waves, could easily do well here at a time when citizens of the U.S. have few true objective news sources left. Each and every outlet has a definite political lean, and social media is even worse with algorithms that deliberately create hate by spitting back stories that emphasize the users bubble-world idea of what is true.

Waves tech credits are uniformly terrific, and the use of period songs only adds to the pic’s authenticity. Mádl’s visual style often feels Scorsese-inspired.

Last year’s submission from Czechia, Tomáš Mašín inspiring thriller, Brothers–which should have made the short list—was also based on a true story.

Let’s hope AMPAS voters give this one a chance, since it resonates with a lot of what is going on today here and in the world and also happens to be sensational cinema.

Czechia was nominated 3 times as Czech Republic and won once (Koyla in 1996) Czechoslovakia has been nominated 6 times with 2 wins (The Shop on Main Street in 1965, Closely Watched Trains in 1967).

This is the 31st submission as Czech Republic/Czechia

The country of Czechoslovakia submitted 23 times

Waves has played a number of U.S. Festivals but has yet to secure distribution.

Canada: Universal Language (Matthew Rankin)

Many of the International Feature Oscar submissions examine human rights violations, misogyny, homophobia, class disparity, and the anger and discord inherent in most cultures—just to name a few of the urgent, yet depressing themes under scrutiny.

Matthew Rankin’s Persian-language Canadian entry, Universal Language, takes a bit of a different approach, and explores humanity’s interdependence—how, despite the horrors of life, we are all connected—furthermore, how cinema brings us all together in profound, unexpected ways.  And he does so in such a fanciful, fantastical and delightful manner, delivering one of the year’s most inspired works.

The glorious wonders to be found in this absurdist cinematic treasure should not be revealed in a review, suffice to say the film takes place in snowy Winnipeg, Canada, stunningly shot by Isabelle Stachtchenko to highlight the city’s stark and drab look, and begins with an irascible, fed-up French teacher (Mani Soleymanlou) who refers to his students as “vermin,” expelling all of them for the most bizarre reason. The Iranian immigrant students decide to rectify the situation.

What follows is an odyssey that defies convention. Lean back and let this magnificent and unique work wash over you. You’ll be led to discover a battle to find an ax to retrieve money frozen in ice, a bus-riding turkey en route to an obsessed butcher, and a guide showing his tour the dullest sites imaginable.

The cast is uniformly superb and led by Rankin himself. The wry, witty and strange-as-fuck script is by Rankin, Pirouz Nemati, Ila Firouzabadi.

Yes the director borrows from some of the greats (Abbas Kiarostami, Wes Anderson, Guy Maddin, to name a few) but like Tarantino, his appropriation begets a surreal, meta-style all his own. One that presents a joyous and unifying message, while also explores the darker aspects of human nature.

Canada has received 7 nominations and won once for Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions in 2003. Four films by Arcand have been submitted, 3 receiving nominations.

This is Canada’s 50th submission.

Oscilloscope Laboratories will release the film in select theaters on February 12, 2025.

Italy: Vermiglio (Maura Delpero) 

Winner of the Grand Jury prize at the Venice Film Festival, Maura Delpero’s ravishing and hypnotic second narrative feature, Vermiglio, is another perspicacious choice made by Italy for its International Feature Oscar submission.

This stunning film is set in a remote Italian village nestled in the Alps as World War 2 is drawing to its bloody close. But for the family living in the mountains, everyday matters take precedent over world events. That is until two soldiers, one a Sicilian, return from war to shake up the village. They happen to be army deserters—fleeing from the Nazis–but one has saved the life of the other (a local) so the townsfolk are conflicted about how to treat them.

The family’s well-educated patriarch is also the village schoolteacher Cesare (Tomasso Ragno) and appears to care more about purchasing coveted LPs than feeding his ever-growing family.

The good-looking Sicilian, Pietro (Giuseppe De Domenico), falls for one of Cesare’s three daughters, the quiet Lucia (Martina Scrinzi) and they embark on an awkward but endearing courtship. Once the war ends, he must return home to let his family know he is alive.

There are a number of subplots, one involving Cesare’s discontentment with his eldest son Dino (Patrick Gardner) as well as middle daughter Ada’s (Rachele Potrich) relationship with the town flirt and rebel rouser, Virginia (a wonderfully unhinged Carlotta Gamba). I’d love a sequel that focused exclusively on Dino and Virginia!

Vermiglio is broken into four segments representing the four seasons and Delpero relies on her actors (both seasoned and untrained) to convey a lot with little dialogue, adding tremendously to the authenticity of the work. There is also a shocking twist I did not see coming that speaks volumes to the themes involving old customs vs. modernization.

This is a truly exquisite cinematic achievement about complicated familial dynamics where matriarchy must often gently battle patriarchy for the sake of her children..

Italy has received 30 nominations and has won 14 times (3 were honorary in 1947, 1949 and 1950), holding the record for most wins. Fellini was the first to win in competition with La Strada in 1956 and Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty was the last to win in 2013. Sorrentino’s The Hand of God (2021) and Matteo Garrone’s stirring Io capitano (2023) were the last films to be nominated.

Italy has been submitting for 68 years (since the conception of the award in competition, but curiously not submitting in 1973).

Vermiglio is opening in theaters on December 25, 2024.

Likely to Make the Short List Part One (Deserved)

Germany: The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)

Fugitive Iranian helmer Mohammad Rasoulof, risked his freedom to secretly shoot the powerful new film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig in Iran. He managed to escape his native country in the nick of time.

The pic examines one family’s pain and suffering when the patriarch is appointed as an investigating judge in Tehran and is expected to simply follow orders and condemn protesting citizens to death.

Iman (Missagh Zareh) is the attorney who struggles with his newfound position. If he blindly does what he’s told he could advance further and receive a much-desired pay raise. His ambitious wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani, incredible) wants him to capitulate. His teen daughters (Setareh Malek and Mahsa Rostami) become embroiled in the anti-hijab movement.

When a handgun goes missing at home, all hell breaks loose, and Iman paranoia gets the best of him. No one is safe from a man bent on saving his own ass. Not even his family.

At 146 minutes, Seed is a bold, multi-genre, highly pertinent film from a courageous, gifted  filmmaker. Kudos to Germany for submitting it. It is almost guaranteed a nomination, certain to be shortlisted.

Germany has garnered 22 nominations, with 4 wins (1979’s The Tin Drum, 2002’s Nowhere in Africa, 2006’s The Lives of Others, 2022’s All Quiet on the Western Front). This is counting the 5 East German submissions which sometimes competed against West Germany. It is the third most nominated country behind France and Italy.

Last year, Ilker Catak’s The Teacher’s Lounge received a nomination.

This is Germany’s 65th submission.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig in currently in theaters via Neon.

France: Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard)

An early critical darling among awards bloggers, Jacques Audiard’s outrageous genre-shattering Cannes sensation, Emilia Pérez will certainly be France’s first major contender in years.

Ironically, this black comedy is mostly in Spanish, but AMPAS rules, since 2006, do not specify what the foreign language spoken must be, as long as more than 50% of it isn’t in English.

The film boasts a trio of terrific female performance, all in the conversation for nominations, Zoe Saldaña Selena Gomez and Karla Sofía Gascón who may become the first trans actor Oscar nominee. Although many would argue, me included, that Saldaña’s is the true lead performance. Just how much AMPAS will embrace this bizarre musical mash-up, though, is still anyone’s guess.

France holds the record for most nominations with 38. Their submissions have won 12 times (including 3 honorary) but not since 1992 with Indochine. Their last nomination was in 2019 for Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables. Last year they selected the sumptuous The Taste of Things over the captivating courtroom drama Anatomy of a Fall, which won the Palm d’Or at Cannes and went on to garner 5 Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Lead Actress and won the Original Screenplay Award.

France has submitted 69 times and is the only country that has consistently entered the awards competition every year since the inception of the competitive category in 1956, winning 3 honorary awards prior to that date.

Emilia Pérez is currently streaming on Netflix.

Sweden: The Last Journey (Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson)

Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson’s touching, tender and heartbreaking doc, The Last Journey explores a son’s loving desire to try and revive his father’s zest for life by embarking on a topsy-turvy road trip through the South of France.

Hammar enlists the help of his friend and fellow filmmaker (both renown in Sweden) to help document the journey as his father, a much beloved former teacher, re-discovers moments and places from his past that helped shape and inform him as a person. Without resorting to the heavy-handed, Hammar and Wikingsson have etched a profound portrait of love, nostalgia and the ephemeral nature of life.

I was surprised by how much I loved this film. Having been caregiver to two parents with memory loss near the end of their lives, the film struck a chord with me, but I think anyone who’s watched a parent devolve in any way will find this film relatable. It’s definitely one of the best docs in the race and should be considered in the Doc Feature category as well.

Sweden has been nominated 16 times and won 3 Oscars, all Ingmar Bergman Films (The Virgin Spring in 1960, Through a Glass Darkly in 1961 and Fanny and Alexander in 1983). Nine submissions were directed by Bergman.

The country’s last nomination was in 2017 for Ruben Östlund’s The Square.

Sweden has submitted 64 times.

Denmark: The Girl With The Needle (Magnus von Horn)

Magnus van Horn beguiling and wholly unsettling feature, The Girl with the Needle, showcases the worst in human beings while arguing that there is still hope, not an easy message to herald in today’s world, or the milieu of our shattered and shit-on protagonist.

Simultaneously horrifically disturbing and incredibly vital, the film is (not so) shockingly inspired by true events but the principal character is fictional.

This is yet another in our installments of baby-killer International Feature submissions and gives Greece’s Murderess a run for its  brutal money on the number of children slaughtered. Of course, here, it’s infant girls and boys that get smothered. Forgive my flippancy, but I was so upset by this film that I almost vomited a few times so humor is my way of coping. And I do think Van Horn is gifted and has crafted a gorgeously shot (in black and white), gruesome and macabre work.

Set in Copenhagen, right after the first world war, The Girl with the Needle centers on a struggling young woman, Karoline (Vic Carmen Sonne) ,who works in a sewing factory and embarks on an affair with her wealthy boss. She gets pregnant but her potential mother-in-law puts the kibosh on any marriage and fires her. Her missing husband returns from war completely disfigured and wearing a mask (reminiscent of Jack Huston in Boardwalk Empire). She kicks him out—there’s a lot of plot here—and meets Dagmar Overby (an extraordinary Trine Dyrholm), an infamous, real-life character who informs Karoline she can sell her the baby for adoption. She then gets involved with helping Dagmar, and her creepy daughter, aide other women in need. Alas, the babies are not being adopted.

The film depicts the lack of options most low-income women had during this time. It’s a scathing indictment of the class system. It also veers into Lynchian Elephant Manterritory with how cruelly society treated anyone who was deformed, disfigured or seen as different—even if they received their wounds fighting for country (oddly, Denmark was neutral during WW1, but I digress…)

This is a true horror film—a very human one and Dagmar Overby was a very real serial killer who murdered upwards of 25 children from 1913 to 1920.

Denmark has been nominated 14 times with 4 wins (Pelle the Conquerer in 1987, Babette’s Feast in 1988, In a Better World in 2010 and Another Round in 2020)

This is Denmark’s 62nd submission.

MUBI releases The Girl with the Needle in theaters on December 6, 2024.

Ireland: Kneecap (Rich Peppiatt)

In Richard Peppiatt energetic and arresting Kneecap Irish rap band members Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, Naoise Ó Cairealláin, and JJ Ó Dochartaigh (aka Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap and DJ Próvaí) play themselves, in fab fashion and Michael Fassbender nails his revolutionary dad part in post-Troubles Belfast. ‘Kneecap’ become super unlikely leaders in a Civil Rights fight to save their native Irish language, but they must battle cops and politicos first!

This biopic-ish film premiered to great reviews out of Sundance earlier in the year and it’s certainly super entertaining maybe too raucous for AMPAS members…but with more International member infusions each year, who’s to say? I think it has a really good chance. And it doesn’t hurt to have a great Fassbender performance in your film!

Ireland has been nominated once, in 2022, for Colm Bairéad‘s The Quiet Girl.

This is their 10th submission.

Kneecap premiered at Sundance and was released and released this year by Sony Pictures Classics.

Gems/Dark Horses That Should be in the Conversation

Romania: Three Kilometers To The End Of The World (Emanuel Parvu) 

When you live in an area where queer lives are valued and celebrated, it’s easy to overlook the fact that so much of the world isn’t on board with LGBTQ acceptance. So, the bravery involved in creating art that goes against the cultural norm can be seen as subversive by that society)and heroic by those on the side of human rights.

Winner of this year’s Cannes Queer Palm, Emanuel Pârvu’s Three Kilometres to the End of the World is set in a remote Romanian town on the Danube Delta and examines the reactions of a conservative community to discovering one of their own might be gay, after he is violently attacked.

17-year-old son Adi (Ciprian Chiujdea) is loved by both his working-class father Dragoi (Bogdan Dumitrache) and his Orthodox Church-worshipping mother (Laura Vasiliu). That is until they discover his sexual orientation.

When Adi is seen kissing a visiting male teen, he is brutally gay bashed by the sons of a political higher up, who Dragoi owes money to. Enter the local police chief (Valeriu Andriuță) who just wants to retire without any trouble, so he diplomatically attempts to fix things with his own interests considered, of course. After all, if the village discovered that Adi is gay, it would be a blight on both the town and the family so it would be best to not pursue a case against the proud and unapologetic perpetrators. But Dragoi isn’t sold on agreeing to have his debt paid off in order to drop the charges.

And all hell breaks loose—somewhat literally—as the parents, buoyed by a now crazed zealot mom more concerned with appearance than her own son’s welfare, demand that the local priest exorcise the boy of his affliction. So, they tie Adi up and force him to undergo the torturous ritual. But when a social services rep arrives, everyone must scurry to cover up their deeds.

There’s a lot of plot here and Pârvu’ and his co-screenwriter Miruna Berescu, handle it quite well. These are mostly well-drawn characters trying to do the right thing, but also, protecting themselves. The problem is that what they view as the right thing, may be devastating to others.

There is something somewhat satiric even in the most sinister sequences, where Pârvu seems to be having a wink at the more sophisticated (and by that I mean accepting) audience members who can see just how ridiculous people steeped in a culture of hatred can act. That isn’t to say the film doesn’t present the damage these collective, repressive mindsets can cause or the ramifications of organized religious intolerance. But the nod to areas where this kind of horrific homophobic behavior would be instantly condemned, is appreciated.

The cast is uniformly excellent with Chiujdea a particularly authentic stand-out.

Thankfully, as nail-biting as the movie gets, it does not opt for a traditional tragic ending. I won’t say what happens but simply state that hope wins out. Mercifully.

Romania has received one nomination, in 2020 for Alexander Nanau’s Collective.

This is their 40th submission.

Israel: Come Closer (Tom Nesher)

Come Closer is one of the few queer-themed films in the International Feature category and I will not go into detail about why because that would rob the viewer of a joyous and stunning turn the film takes.

First-time Israeli helmer Tom Nesher has fashioned a gloriously nuanced meditation on grief and connection centering on a young woman whose life is shattered when her beloved brother is killed.

Eden (Lia Elalouf) and Nati (Ido Tako) are super close sibs, joined at the hip. When Nati tragically dies, Eden is left to grieve and discovers that Nati had a secret life she didn’t know about that involved a serious relationship with Maya (Darya Rosenn). The volatile Eden confronts shy Maya, basically scaring the shit out of her, but the two begin to bond, initially over their love for Nati, but then something more intense builds between them.

21-year-old Elalouf does remarkable work in her feature debut. It’s a daring and mesmerizing turn. Tako makes an indelible impression in just a few scenes. And Rosenn is excellent, conveying just the right amount of fear and timidity.

This is a highly personal work for Nesher as she lost her brother 5 years ago and she delves into the effects of deep loss rather fearlessly and with great authenticity and complexity. We all deal with death very differently. Nesher gets that and isn’t afraid to show the dark side of that kind of personal sorrow.

Israel still holds the record for the most nominations without a win: 10. Last nomination: Joseph Cedar’s Footnote in 2011. Samuel Maoz’s Foxtrot made the short list in 2017.

This is Israel’s 57th submission.

Greenwich Entertainment has acquired the film for U.S. distribution.

Iceland: Touch (Baltasar Kormakur)

Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormákur (Adrift, Beast) has crafted a bittersweet love story that journeys beyond the expected. Touch is based on Ólafur Jóhann Ólafsson’s novel (he also co-wrote the script with Kormákur) and centers on Kristófer (Egill Olafsson), a chef from Iceland who studied in London and is now traveling to Japan, in the midst of the COVID-19 lockdown, in search of Miko, a lost love who vanished without explanation when they were both in their twenties.

This enchanting, poignant film crosscuts older Kristófer journey with a much younger Kristófer (Palmi Kormákur, the director’s gorgeous son who also happens to be a terrific thesp) as he decides to leave his studies to work in a Japanese restaurant where he first meets Miko.

Miko (Kôki) and her restaurant owner father emigrated to the UK from Hiroshima. She’s a “hibakusha” (atomic bomb survivor) whose mother died shortly after she was born, and this important plot note is key to the secrets revealed in the film’s finale.

I’m not quite sure how realistic the last 25 min of Touch is—especially when it comes to one character accepting reveals that robbed him of so much. But the idea that someone would approach such an arguable betrayal with such love and empathy is certainly admirable and infuses the film with hope and grace.

The film captures both the politically charged late 60s/early 70s as well as our recent pandemic with great attention to detail.

This is Kormákur’s fifth directorial submission from Iceland. He made the short list in 2012 with The Deep.

Iceland has been nominated once in 1991 for Children of Nature.

The country was shortlisted again in 2021 for Valdimar Johannsson’s Lamb and last year for Hlynur Palmason’s Godland.

This is iceland’s 45th submission.

Touch will be released by Focus Features in 2025.

Bosnia and Herzegovina: My Late Summer (Danis Tanović)

Croatian actress Anja Matković has an Anna Magnani quality—a great compliment. She’s tough, no-nonsense but there’s a vulnerability right under the robust exterior. In Oscar-winner Danis Tanović’s latest film, My Late Summer, Matković captivates from the moment she’s onscreen to the final shot of her leaving the remote island her character journey’s to seeking some kind recompense from the now dead father who abandoned her. What she finds is quite different than what she thought she wanted.

Matković plays Maya, an educated woman at a crossroads. She arrives on the island of Prvić, off-season, on a quest to contest her father’s will and accidentally meets the local mayor Icho (a wonderful Goran Navojec) who runs a pub and needs a barmaid. Since Maja must remain on the island for some time while DNA tests are made, she agrees to take the job on her terms (which comes with free room and board). She also finds herself falling for a visiting writer Saša (Uliks Fehmiu). There is a lot more plot in this charming, often funny and truly poignant work that I need not go into.

Gorgeously photographed (by  Milos Jacimovic), My Late Summer is a truly endearing pic and much of that has to do with Tanović’s subtle direction and Matković sterling central performance.

This is the fifth Tanović submission. His film, No Mans Land, won the Oscar in 2001 and another of his features, An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, was shortlisted in 2013. B&H was also nominated in 2020 for Jasmila Žbanić’s Quo Vadis, Aida?

This is the country’s 24th submission.

Lebanon Arzé (Mira Shaib)

With the air strike bombings of Beirut in the news virtually every day, the fact that Lebanon has even submitted a film is a minor miracle.

And Mira Shaib’s Arzé is an impressive and inspiring feature film debut. There is nothing overtly political about this movie, yet it has so much to say about the world’s current divisiveness and our global culture of hate and fear.

The titular character, played superbly by Diamand Abou Abboud, is a driven single mother barely making ends meet, living in Beirut with her frail sister Layla (Betty Taoutel) and Arzé’s 17-year-old son Kinan (Bilal Al Hamwi) who is desperate to leave Lebanon for Europe where he thinks his father is living. Arzé and Layla bake delicious pies but don’t have the means to deliver them quickly enough, so Arzé scrapes together a down payment on a scooter. While visiting his girlfriend, Kinan leaves the scooter unattended, and it is stolen starting a sequence of hilarious and heartbreaking events into motion where all three central characters will achieve some sort of epiphany.

Arzé is determined to get the scooter back and as she and Kinan maneuver their way around the many multiethnic communities of Beirut, we get a glaring glimpse into the inherent prejudice in the Lebanese culture — a microcosm for the intolerance in the world today—and certainly here in the U.S. Through specificity, universality is achieved.

Shaib handles the balance of comedy and pathos magnificently, knowing just when to pull at our heartstrings and when laughter is needed instead. The script, by Louay Khraish and Faissal Sam Shaib is chock full of keen insights about religious and societal discrimination as well as the destruction familial secrets can cause. Again, walking that fine line between broad comedy and dark drama.

The three central performances are excellent with Bilal Al Hamwi doing a perfect job of balancing Kinan’s teen angst and antsyness with his genuine love for his mother and aunt.

I also have to mention the fabulous, side-splitting, scene-stealing work by Shaden Fakih as a befuddles shopkeeper. Get this actress her own film now!

Arzé feels authentic throughout, even when some of the minor characters behave in stereotypical fashion, since real people do as well. And although there are some villainous players, there are a seemingly equal number of people wanting to help our trio find their scooter so they can bake more yummy pies.

Lebanon has submitted 20 times and received two nominations for The Insult (2017) and Capernaum (2018) but has yet to win.

Malaysia: Abang Adik (Jin Ong)

Jin Ong’s feature directorial debut, Abang Adik, is a bit of a cinematic mindfuck, since the first half is a character study about two very different undocumented male orphans in crime-infested Malaysia. Abang (Kang Ren Wu) is a deaf market worker barely making ends meet. Adik (Jack Tan) is his wayward and angry younger brother who doesn’t want help from anyone and gets by via illegal shenanigans. The one thing they have in common is that they’re both completely devoted to one another—to the point where the homoerotic vibes are obvious—especially in an extended dance sequence. (But both are also given female crushes, just so we don’t get the wrong idea, even if that wrong idea—I’ll stop here…) Regardless, life is often miserable for these boys, but they can always rely one each other.

But, just when you thought the narrative was going in one direction, it takes a shocking turn and both characters are tossed into a thriller of sorts.

The film is heartbreaking and mesmerizing, a truly impressive debut with two superb central performances. And both Abang and Adik are part of a queer community, which is nice to see depicted onscreen without the usual homo-or-trans-phobic drama. These are a group of misfits—outsiders—who provide one another with their own safe havens.

The film also delves into the horrible troubles undocumented people have–simply trying to survive—whose identities are in question for lack of paperwork proof, even though they were born in Malaysia.

If enough AMPAS members see it, this could, at least, make the short list.

Malaysia has never been Oscar nominated. This is their 9th submission.

Abang Adik is currently streaming on Netflix.

Pakistan: The Glassworker (Usman Riaz)

“To be an artist, one must create. Because without art and music, what do we have in this world full of conflict and war?”

Usman Riaz has crafted Pakistan’s very firsthand-drawn, 2D-animated feature with the beautiful film, The Glassworker. This highly personal non-linear work, based on the director’s post-911 experiences, centers on Vincent, the son of a vehemently anti-war glassblower who falls for violinist Alliz, the daughter of a war-mongering army colonel. The movie bounces back and forth in time as we see the teen characters falling for each other, but we can sense impending doom. Flash forward to the town being bombed and our lover’s estrangement.

We are never told exactly where or even when the story is set, allowing it to take on a universal feel.

I loved this film so much and the theme of art being paramount to our lives could not be more vital right now. The movie also explores the difficulties inherent in two people connecting when they share conflicting ideologies. In addition, the idea of not allowing hatred to consume you is quite potent, and timely!

I was only disappointed with the film’s final moments, which I felt relied too much on its seemingly tacked on magical realism element, when a more authentic ending coulda/woulda been more effective.

The film is also eligible in the Best Animated Feature category where it should be considered.

Riaz: I joke that I am not even the underdog in this race, I am the flea that lives on the underdog! There are so many incredible films in contention, I’m just grateful to be a tiny part of the conversation.“

Pakistan has never been nominated. Saim Sadiq’s Joyland did make the short list in 2022.

This is their 13th submission.

Likely To Short List Part Two (Critic’s Darlings)

UK: Santosh (Sandhya Suri)

Sandhya Suri’s narrative feature debut, Santosh, is a gripping, gritty look at class inequality and misogyny in today’s India.

Set in the rural badlands of India, the film centers on the titular character (an excellent Shahana Goswami) who loses her police officer husband and has no choice but to join the force herself in order to make ends meet. She is immediately mentored by Sharma (Sunita Rajwar), an older officer who may have ulterior motives.

After a low-caste young girl is brutally murdered and discovered in a well, Santosh and Sharma begin an investigation that exposes the inescapable corruption inherent in the insane caste system in their country.

Santosh does not compromise in exposing the appalling tactics used by the police to force a confession or in its indictment of the ruling class.

The UK has been nominated three times, and won once, last year for Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest.

Santosh is their 21st submission.

Metrograph Pictures will release Santosh in December 2024

Latvia: Flow (Gints Zilbalodis)

Like a good silent film, Gints Zilbalodis’ mystical animated feature, Flow, soars on the expressions on the faces of its characters. Here, though, our protagonist is an animated wide-eyed black cat in survival mode after waters begin flooding the planet. Along the cat’s journey we meet a capybara, a lemur, a dog and several large birds, one that risks its life to defend our precious cat.

Flow is climate-change-disaster-meets-biblical-flood-cataclysm cinema, that relies heavily on our sympathy for one small but irresistible feline. In startling ways, the film challenges our normal approach to watching narrative films AND animated features.

The film is also eligible in the Animated Feature category.

Latvia has yet to receive a nomination.
This is the country’s 16th submission

Flow is currently in theaters.

Senegal: Dahomey (Mati Diop)

In 68 minutes, filmmaker Mati Diop provides viewers with an original and engaging documentary that transcends the norm and acts more as a treatise for how western countries must correct the wrongs of the past.

Dahomey’s focus is on the plundering of artifacts and artwork by French colonial soldiers from the titular African kingdom (Benin, today) and the return of 26 pieces out of 7000, after over 100 years. (The French have many of the works on display in museums.)

Diop juxtaposes a POV of the artifacts themselves, specifically Number 26 (you must see it to understand) with student debate surrounding the return of the works, why they were indeed returned (benevolent gesture vs. political aggrandizement) and what should be done about the remaining pillaged artwork. “Our soul was looted more than a century ago,” one student argues about the robbing of an entire cultural heritage.

This is another empowering piece of cinema that, at its core argues for proper reparations throughout the world.

This is Senegal’s 6th entry. The country has never been nominated but two films made the shortlist. Félicité in 2017 and Diop’s Atlantics in 2019.

The Netherlands: Memory Lane (Jelle de Jonge)

Jelle de Jong’s Memory Lane is a sweet, funny, reflective, sometimes somber look at an elderly couple coming to terms with mortality and memory loss.

Jaap (Martin van Waardenberg) is a cantankerous man who doesn’t like to do much outside of his normal routine or leave his home in the Netherlands. His wife, Maartje (Leny Breederveld) is showing signs of dementia and insisting they road trip to Barcelona to bid farewell to an old friend. Jaap doesn’t seem to want to accept that Maartje is losing her memory and becomes frustrated with her—something anyone who’s been a caregiver to a family member with memory issues can wholly understand and relate to.

Memory Lane is an affectionate look at a couple rediscovering their love for each other under the oddest of circumstances. We’ve seen films that center on a protagonist with Alzheimer’s and/or dementia before—in Venice, Familiar Touch proved to be an extraordinary entry into the memory loss cinema canon. Here, the affliction causes a renewal of passion and understanding between our two leads.

This is exactly the type of film that would make the short list in the Academy of old (pun intended) so it’s fate will depend on the age range of the members who decide to sign up for International feature voting.

The Netherlands has 7 nominations and 3 wins (1987’s The Assault, 1996’s Antonia’s Line, 1998’s Character). Their last nomination was in 2003 with Ben Sombogaart’s Twin Sisters.

This is the 57th Dutch submission.

Belgium: Julie Keeps Quiet (Leonardo Van Dijl)

Julie Keeps Quiet, the maddeningly appropriate title of Leonardo Van Dijl’s first feature, is contemplative, overly-repetitive yet admirable for the subject matter it takes on. I appreciate Van Dijl’s wanting to tell the story of a traumatized teen tennis player (Tessa Van den Broeck) caught in a fraught situation that may have involved sexual abuse.

The script, by Ruth Becquart, who also plays Julie’s mother, never delves deep enough into why Julie is keeping quiet, nor does the central performance allow for much real empathy. I was left unengaged and frustrated. I did like how Julie perseveres and how we see her discipline and fortitude—although I never quite felt she was ambitious enough a player.

 I’m sure the deliberate obliqueness will appeal to certain critics. And it might make the short list based on early reactions.

Belgium’s submissions have received 8 nominations but no wins. Lukas Dhont’s Close was the last to be nominated in 2022.

Definitely Worthy of Consideration

Guatemala: Rita (Jayro Bustamante)

When Jayro Bustamante’s latest fantasy horror film, Rita, started I was put off by the magical realism aspects of the film and wondered why the story, based on real events, couldn’t simply be straightforwardly told. But as the visually stunning, super-wide and emotional devastating film continued I got sucked right in and I realized how an authentic narrative would be an unrelentingly grim, near-impossible sit.

The plot centers on the 13-year-old titular character (Giuliana Santa Cruz) who escapes from her sexually abusive father and complicit mother and is tossed into a horrific facility for young women. At first she is hazed by the inmates, but then finds herself bonding with them and hatching a plan to flee and expose the evil and predatory powers-that-be.

Bustamante, who made the acclaimed La Llorona, based Rita on a real 2017 tragedy that killed 41 young girls in an orphanage south of Guatemala City. Because of impossible living conditions, abuse and cruelty, 56 girls revolted and were, then, locked into a room with no food or water, so they took extreme measures to try and escape and most of them perished.

The perspicacious writer-director uses this truly terrible event to create a story relatable to so many young people who have been abused or mistreated while adding elements of fairy tale and fantasy to make it more palpable and potent. It does not take away from the film’s moving, uncompromising and infuriating power.

Much like every film/play/TV show about the Vatican sex abuse scandal, Rita is an urgent call to condemn the inhuman abuse of our children, to punish the perpetrators, force institutions to to take responsibility AND to make certain it stops happening. As a worldwide society, we are failing on all counts, everywhere.

This is Guatemala’s 4^th submission–3 are Bustamante films (Ixcanul in 2015 and La Llarona in 2020, which made the short list)

Rita is currently streaming on Shudder.

South Korea: 12.12: The Day (Kim Sung-su)

 “Fail and it’s treason, succeed, and it’s revolution!”

A huge box office hit in South Korea, Kim Sung-su’s taut, nail-biting thriller, 12.12: The Day focuses on the December 1979 military coup in Seoul after the assassination of President Park Chung-hee. Based on real events, but with character names changed, this powerful film focuses on the political maneuvering and manipulations that helped a dictator seize power.

There is a lot of plot in this riveting 2 ½ hour work and even if you aren’t familiar with South Korean history,  you’ll find yourself on the wildest of rides wondering if democracy will die in flames. Can we relate or what?

The film boasts a terrific cast led by Jung Woo-sung as the upstanding General and Hwang Jung-min deliciously chewing scenery as the dictator-wannabe, Chun Doo-gwang, (based on dictator Chun Doo-hwan).

This is a very daring film for Sung-su to make as it reflects on South Korea’s identity– past and present. Americans may see a lot of Chun in our current President-elect, since his tactics of using fear and appealing to people’s base instincts are terribly similar.

12.12: The Day is bold, exciting, potent cinema and a reminder that past does indeed seem to be prologue.

South Korea has been nominated once and won—Parasite in 2019, which also won Best Picture (over 1917, which to me was ridiculous).

This is the country’s 37th submission.

Japan: Cloud (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)

Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s slow-burn-towards-a-Tarantino-inferno thriller, Cloud keenly depicts just how easily anger can beget violence in our social-media-cyber-addicted world when petty grudges snowball into seething rage.

Yoshi Ryosuke (Suda Masaki) is an online reseller who offers whatever he thinks he can flip—regardless of the item’s authenticity. Yoshi lives with his flighty girlfriend Akiko (Furukawa Kotone) in a remote home outside of Tokyo and has hired a young and uber-devoted assistant, Sano (Okudaira Daiken, simultaneously hilarious and terrifying). When strange things begin to happen, Yoshi and company become embroiled in a trap set by a crazy group out to destroy him. Cloud’s climax is horrific yet insanely satisfying.

Japan has been nominated 18 times, including last year for Perfect Days, and won 3 honorary awards and 2 competitive Oscars (2008’s Departures and 2021’s Drive My Car.)

Japan has submitted 68 times, since the inception of the category, and won 3 honorary awards before the category was instated. They did not submit in 1976.

Lithuania: Drowning Dry (Laurynas Bareisa)

Writer-director Laurynas Bareiša’s second feature, Drowning Dry was inspired by a real moment in his life when he had to resuscitate his 2-year-old son. He used the irregular repetition from the actual dry drowning condition–where you escape drowning in the water but experience it on dry land afterwards– as a structural element for his story which in non-linear, fragmented and repetitive form follows two families gathering for the weekend when near-tragedy, and then, real tragedy ensues. Or does it?

Bareiša loves to use long seemingly static shots–deceptively, because often the camera is slowly moving—to set the mood and provide a kind of calm-before-the-storm atmosphere. He also tosses in a few repeat flashbacks, fleshing out more of the narrative. This style fucks with the audience (in a cool way) and leaves you feeling disoriented and wondering about what actually did happen. And did it involve some (more than alluded to) macho contest between the two men?

The film boasts four excellent performance by Gelmine Glemzaite, Paulius Markevicius, Agne Kaktaite and Giedrius Kiela.

Bareiša’s a filmmaker to watch, with a style all his own. His first feature, Pilgrims, was Lithuania’s submission in 2022.

The country has never been nominated. This is their 17th submission.

Dekanalog is planning to release Drowning Dry theatrically in the U.S. in the late spring of 2025.

Mongolia: If Only I Could Hibernate (Zoljargal Purevdash)

Fourteen-year-old Ulzii (newcomer Battsooj Uurtsaikh) dreams of a better life than what he and his three siblings are currently experiencing living on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar during a harsh Mongolian winter. Mom is a drunk who can’t hold onto a job. The family barely has any coal to keep themselves warm. And Ulzii is forced to seek illegal labor just to keep the family fed. But Ulzii excels at physics and one day his is given an opportunity to compete in a contest, which he wins and begins to think he might actually have a shot at a full scholarship to a prominent school if he can be victorious at the National level. But will his circumstances circumvent his desire for a decent life for himself and his kin?

Zoljargal Purevdash’s sweet, heartbreaking and hopeful feature film debut, If Only I Could Hibernate, made history at Cannes last year when it became the first Mongolian movie to play as an Official Selection in the Un Certain Regard competition.

The film never bogs down in bleakness, yet feels wholly authentic. This is one of those gems from a country most people never give a second thought to and deserves consideration.

Mongolia has submitted 9 times, with one disqualification, and no nominations.

Kenya: Nawi (Vallentine Chelluget, Apuu Mourine, Kevin Schmutzler, Toby Schmutzler)

Based on a true story, Nawi, is an emotionally devastating portrait of a 13-year-old girl living in Northern Kenya who has no agency thanks to the patriarchal rules of her village.

The titular character (an extraordinary Michelle Lemuya Ikeny), is one of the top students in the region and has the opportunity to attend an esteemed high school in Nairobi. But her excitement is short-lived when, in order to pay a debt, her father sells her to a much older, portly man from their village—illegal but still part of the tradition among many patriarchal areas in Africa. The young girl escapes which places her newborn sister at risk of being promised to the same man.

As astonishing as it is to believe, these insane cultural practices still go on. Am I being judgy or human in calling this out? A scroll at the film’s end tells us there are 640 million child brides in the world and many die during childbirth because they’re giving birth too soon for their bodies to handle it.

The film delves into these old-world customs and how poverty and outdated religious habits are usually the driving factors—as well as the notion that women are just commodities and baby making machines. Nawi is bold and daring in not shying away from the toll these decisions take on young girls.

Oddly, Nawi cites four directors: Vallentine Chelluget, Apuu Mourine, Kevin Schmutzler and Toby Schmutzler.

This is Kenya’s 9th entry, with no nominations to date.

Costa Rica: Memories Of A Burning Body (Antonella Sudasassi Furniss)

Antonella Sudasassi Furniss’s Memories of a Burning Body explores the female gender by centering her film on three women ages 68 to 71 and having them reflect on their traumatic pasts defined by the deep-seeded sexual subjugation instilled in them from an early age.

As they relive their stories defined by misogyny, repression and rape, the film does something truly remarkable blending an autobio-doc-style with dramatizations of these women’s past lives, melding them into one body and a story that embodies a generation of female sexual repression.

Memories of a Burning Body is an unsettling yet enlightening film that defies categorization and celebrates the fortitude and courageousness of women.

Costa Rica has never been nominated. This is their 13th submission.

Outsider Pictures has picked up the film for release, TBD.

Portugal: Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes)

Celebrated Portuguese filmmaker, Miguel Gomes (Tabu, Arabian Nights) brings us a gorgeously photographed (mostly in black and white), wondrous if perplexing tale of a couple destined to be apart with Grand Tour. Set in 1918, but prancing anachronistically, wily-nily through time, the film begins with the journey of British Empire official, Edward (Gonçalo Waddington), who is set to marry his fiancee of seven years (whose face he can’t fully recall) but decides he’d rather galivant across Asia. The movie follows him from Burma to The Philippines to Singapore to Thailand to Vietnam to Japan to China, even traveling with a bunch of monks along the way and surviving a train wreck.

Midway through we meet his betrothed, Molly (the fabulous Crista Alfaiate) who injects heaps of much-needed comic relief AND narrative sense into the film. Molly, with her odd but infectious laugh, is in hot pursuit of Edward and determined to find him. It’s her odyssey now.

Gomes has quite a bit to say about English colonialism and enjoys breaking cinematic boundaries and the film is loaded with stylized wonders, but we are often kept at too much of a distance. The ending, while strangely hopeful is cinematically unsatisfying.

In the years where AMPAS had saves, this mesmerizing yet perplexing feature would surely have made the short list. It still might.

This is the third Gomes film to be submitted by Portugal (2008’s Our Beloved Month Of August and 2015’s Arabian Nights: Volume 2 – The Desolate One.)

This is Portugal’s 41st submission. The country has never been nominated or made the short list and currently hold the record for the most submissions without a single nomination. Another reason to think that maybe…?

MUBI will release Grand Tour some time in 2025.

Thailand: How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (Pat Boonnitipat)

Pat Boonnitipat’s directorial debut, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is a heartwarming film that totally charmed me.

A glimpse into the best and worst of family, the film’s central relationship is between M. (Putthipong “Billkin” Assaratanakul), a university dropout and his cantankerous, dying grandma Menju (Usha “Taew” Seamkhum). Initially the twentysomething slacker begins spending time and caring for his grandmother to seek her inheritance but the bond between the two grows stronger and surprises both of them.

Grandma has two greedy and selfish male children and a loving daughter (M’s mom). Her sons only come around when they want something.

This sentimental work soars because of the two lead performances. Both Assaratanakul and Seamkhum are wondrous and their character’s grow as the simple but beautiful story unfolds. Assaratanakul is particularly adept at using his close-ups masterfully.

The film broke records at the box office in Thailand and Southeast Asia.

Thailand has never been nominated and has submitted 31 times.

How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies is currently available on Digital, Blu-ray and DVD via Well Go USA.

The Philippines: And So It Begins (Ramona S. Diaz)

I doubt there is a more frighteningly timely political film this year than Ramona S. Diaz’s And So It Begins. Dismissed by certain critics earlier in the year as too one-sided, after November 5th, it plays like a How-To book for the Trump campaign–taken directly from the Hitler-Mussolini model. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump’s team used uber-right-wing President Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos, Jr.’s social media brainwashing tactics to the letter.

The doc follows the 2022 Philippine presidential election, mostly focusing on the then Vice president’s Leni Robredo campaign which emphasized truth above all else—and we Americans know just how much that matters—or should, anyway. What is truth in the Fake News era?—A term coined by The Apprentice himself–or appropriated, is prob more likely…

The film also devotes a good deal of time to Nobel-Prize-winning free-speech journalist Maria Ressa and how her life has been under threat, and she is constantly being smeared on social media for her truth telling—along with her fellow Rappler reporters.

Kamala Harris supporters will find a lot to commiserate with in Diaz’s film. Detractors will complain that it paints Marcos in a sinister light. I think refusing to answer questions and attend debates as well as promising voters he will share gold bars with them already paints him in a questionable, borderline lunatic light. And even if he did have billions of dollars’ worth of gold bars, did his faithful followers not wonder where he got them from???

Oh, how easy it is to cast a spell on people.

The Philippines has never been nominated or made the short list.

This is the country’s 35th submission (3rd to Portugal and Egypt as the country with the most submissions with no recognition.)

Ecuador: Behind the Mist (Sebastián Cordero)

Shot in the Himalayas in Nepal, Behind the Mist is celebrated Ecuadorian filmmaker Sebastian Cordero’s eye-opening doc that delves into the psyche of compulsive mountain climber Iván Vallejo and his passion for the sport.

This gorgeously photographed, intelligent and viscerally stimulating doc shows both subject and director reflecting on important life choices while Cordero constantly wonders what his film will ultimately be about—invoking other directors like Kieslowski—in his attempt to figure it out. Meanwhile Vallejo waxes on how once you begin climbing, you want to venture even higher. “We humans are never satisfied,” he muses.

Meanwhile they climb and climb with less and less oxygen in hopes of viewing the ultimate, Mount Everest—the tallest mountain on the planet at 8848 meters, not hiking it but just venturing forth to get a glimpse.  Do they make it? Does that matter or is the journey and what it begets most paramount?

Ecuador has submitted 12 times but has yet to make the short list.

India: Lost Ladies (Laapataa Ladies) (Kiran Rao)

Bonkers hilarious and heartwarming are the initial words I would use to describe Kiran Rao’s second feature, Lost Ladies (Laapataa Ladies)—as long as you accept the ridiculous premise—which should be a given with comedy.

Set in rural India in 2001, the plot pivots on a bride switch. While on a long, post-nuptial train ride, two young brides, heavily veiled, are mistakenly swapped. Both marriages were arranged and when each groom, one sweet and kind, the other a brute who may have set his first wife on fire, discover the blunder, they go about trying to find their real bride. Phool (Nitanshi Goel), is longing to be reunited with her husband. The more independent Jaya (Pratibha Ranta) is doing everything she can to escape her fate.

Lost Ladies is a charming, sometimes biting, satire that weaves a love story with an empowering tale of one woman’s fight for her freedom—and fervent desire for an education. It also presents us with a marvelous seemingly villainous character who turns out to be somewhat of a hero grandly played by Ravi Kishan.

Ranta and Goel must be cited for their terrific work as the two brides.

India has received three nominations, no wins.

There was some controversy over the Film Federation of India not selecting Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, which was lauded by critics, won the Grand Prix at Cannes and is currently garnering many end-of-year crix prizes—not surprising. Suffice to say, I think both films were worthy, and India ultimately chose well.

India has been submitting on and off since the 2nd year the category began, this is their 57th entry.

Lost Ladies is currently streaming on Netflix.

Kyrgyzstan: Heaven Is Beneath Mother’s Feet aka Paradise at Mother’s Feet (Ruslan Akun) 

In Ruslan Akun’s sweeping, multi-genre road-trip-on-foot odyssey, Paradise at Mother’s Feet (aka: Heaven is Beneath Mother’s Feet) Adil (Emil Esenaliev) a 35-year-old Kyrgyz man with the mental development of an 8-year-old, decides to take his ailing 75-year old mother, Raikhan (Anarkul Nazarkulova) to the Holy City of Mecca for Hajj (mandatory religious pilgrimage for Muslims) so they can both go to Paradise.

The first quarter of this film could have easily been condensed to 10 minutes, but once our duo takes to the road, the film grips the viewer and never let’s go.

The sometimes hilarious, often disturbing and horrific trek takes them from their small village in Kyrgyzstan to Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Syria, and, finally, Saudi Arabia (take a look on a map to realize what an undertaking it would be). Along the route, they’re helped by truckers, attacked by wolves, stowaway on board a cargo ship, stumble onto a movie set where one of them is actually cast in a film, arrested and beaten by terrorists and must navigate a minefield to survive — all impressively shot by DP Kanybek Kalmatov.

The film is a fable so much disbelief is to be suspended. And although it’s specific to a culture and religion, it manages universality so anyone can relate.

Adil’s purity is offset by his mother’s constant concern, but her love for him is boundless—and vice versa, so the obvious message about the mother/son bond is paramount but the film also offers, in the characters steadfast journey and tenacious resilience, the idea that good can conquer evil.

And in an 11th hour reveal, we find that one of the main characters is heavily flawed, which adds an unexpected dimension to the film.

This is Kyrgyzstan’s 17th submission. Never shortlisted, the country has had 2 films disqualified/not on the final list.

Worthy for Specific and Varying Reasons

Venezuela:  Back to Life (Luis Carlos and Alfredo Hueck)

Based on their very real story, Luis Carlos Hueck and Alfredo Hueck’s Back to Life (Vuelve a la vida) deceptively begins super light in tone, so much so, one gets the idea it might be a fun, if superficial, sex comedy. Set in 1996, Ricardo has returned home to Caracas after a year studying in New York. His family welcomes him back, but he immediately goes on a celebration binge with his friends. While on the beach, Ricardo realizes he’s had a perpetual erection since 6am and it’s starting to hurt. Jokes abound but once he is admitted into the hospital the news is rather grave. Ricardo has a type of blood cancer that can only be cured by a bone marrow transplant. His very close younger brother insists he will be a perfect donor.

What happens next is truly inspiring and life affirming. The tone is kept fairly light but,, in large part thanks to the terrific performance by Jose Ramon Barreto as Ricardo, we feel the character’s fears and frustrations and we get why he is loved so much by his family and friends.

The film could have used a little more time in post-sound and editing, but it’s a gem. The Huecks have a really interesting and risky way to end the film—but it pays off.

Marianela Maldonado’s doc Children of Las Brisas was initially submitted by Venezuela, but then deemed ineligible for having a TV premiere before its theatrical release.

Last year, there was tremendous controversy that had to do with the selection process. Diego Vicentini claimed rules were violated by the committee and his film Simón, a powerful work that reveals some of the atrocities of the current regime, was overlooked for Miguel Ángel Ferrer’s excellent but more Venezuelan-positive film, The Shadow of the Sun.

Venezuela has never been nominated.

In 2014, Alberto Arvelo’s The Liberator (Libertador) made the shortlist.

This is the country’s 34th submission.

Albania: Waterdrop (Robert Budina)

In Albania’s 17th submission, a mother must confront her own complicity in a corrupt system when her 15-year-old son becomes embroiled in a rape scandal that could send him to prison. Did he do it? Was it his best friend and the powerful mayor’s son? And what of the smartphone that is tossed from a jet ski and waterdrops to the lake floor?

Robert Budina’s third feature, Waterdrop, proves a scathing indictment of just how the wealthy class can get away with whatever crime they commit. UK’s Santosh has similar themes that include crimes against young girls.

Gresa Pallaska delivers a powerhouse turn as Aida, a highly ambitious woman who did what she needed to do to succeed and prosper in the small Albanian town she grew up in. Now among the elite, she must pull all the stops out to protect her son, who she is certain is innocent. As the narrative unravels the lurid layers of conflicting truths, Aida finds herself in an impossible situation.

There’s really nothing new explored in Waterdrop, but the film is so enveloping and the pace so energetic, it’s both enjoyable and thought-provoking. And Pallaska sears the screen.

Albania has yet to be nominated.

This is their 17th submission.

Spain: Saturn Return (Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez)

“They could only talk through music.”

I’m not familiar with the popular Spanish group Los Planetas so a somewhat fictionalized account of the creative (and personal) process involved in recording and producing their third album in 1998 is, well, foreign to me. The actual band is said to have been influenced by Joy Division and the Velvet Underground.

Set in Granada during the indie music scene explosion, Saturn Return stands on its own as an engrossing, if never fully penetrating film that explores the Fleetwood Mac-ish relationships between band members via a dreamy and non-linear narrative peppered by really terrific songs, some that pay tribute to the great gay poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who was murdered for his socialist political beliefs.

What is most intriguing about the film is that although the former female bassist May (Stephanie Magnin) was central to the band, she only appears fleetingly. The pic’s focus is on the relationship between the main Singer (Dani Ibanez) and the Guitarist (Cristalino). FYI, these are the abstract names of the two characters. Singer is going through his own artistic crisis while Guitarist has turned to drugs and has been getting into heaps of life-threatening trouble. But the closeness between the two cannot be denied. May describes their relationship this way: “They could have fought to the death or kissed to the death depending on the night.”

Directors Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodríguez skirt the homoeroticism between the two, which is unfortunate because that kind of nuance might have made for a much more fascinating study. Instead, the characters are fairly one-dimensional, and we are left with dark, poetic songs to fill in some blanks.

Spain has been nominated 21 times and won 4 awards (1982’s Begin the Beguine, 1993’s Belle Époque, 1999’s All About My Mother, 2004’s The Sea Inside).

Last year’s extraordinary Society of the Snow, directed by J.A. Bayona was among the five eventual nominees.

This is Spain’s 67th submission. 

Georgia: The Antique (Rusudan Glurjidze)

Rusudan Glurijdze’s The Antique is inspired by the ruthless and illegal deportation of thousands of Georgians from Russia via Putin’s newly formed government. The film focuses on a Georgian woman, Medea (Salome Demuria), who works in a restoration lab. She’s in an on/off relationship with Lado (Vladimir Daushvili) an antique smuggler. Medea moves in with a misanthropic old man in the early stages of dementia, in hopes of ultimately purchasing his apartment for cheap.

The oddball couple begin to transcend the learned prejudices that surround them, but Glurijdze never allows her narrative to bog down in too much sentiment or melodrama. The film is a potent plea for understanding.

Georgia has been nominated once in 1996 for Nana Jorjadze’s A Chef in Love.

Glurjidze directed Georgia’s 2016 submission House Of Others.

This is the country’s 23rd submission.

Egypt: Flight 404 (Hani Khalifa) 

Mona Zaki sears the screen in an absolutely riveting performance in Hani Khalifa’s absorbing, if crazy and confusing film, Flight 404. Zaki is Ghada, a Muslim woman, with a checkered past who is planning on traveling to Mecca for Hajj (pilgrimage). But before she can go there are a lot of past demons (most in the form of men) she must meet head on in order to acquire the sum of money she needs for her pilgrimage and to pay for her annoying mother’s surgery—after being hit by a car—in a pretty hilarious sequence.

Flight 404 has way too much plot and too many characters, but the film deftly deals with redemption, retribution, forgiveness and enlightenment. It’s also, often, truly funny and poignant. And Zaki is a true cinematic force, and she provides her character with beaucoup shadings and nuances.

Egypt has never been nominated, despite submitting 37 times, second only to Portugal for the most submissions without a nod.

Morocco: Everybody Loves Touda (Nabil Ayouch)

The central character, Touda, in Nabil Ayouch’s intriguing drama, Everybody Loves Touda, is a sheikha, a Moroccan traditional folklore singer and dancer (part of the culture for centuries) and she’s very good at what she does but it seems that no matter where she sings, she’s either hit on, manhandled or physically attacked.

Touda has a deaf son and is desperately trying to get him into a good school in Casablanca. She can only do so if she can make a living as a sheikha.

Nisrine Erradi is completely captivating as the titular character and shoulders the film with a complex portrayal of a woman trying to get along and thrive in a patriarchal world that is hell bent on holding her back and even crushing her. And Erradi proves magical in the musical moments.

Touda’s passion, strength and determination is empowering and an important message to all women, especially those living in more misogynistic parts of the world.

This is the director’s 6^th Moroccan Oscar submission.

Morocco has never been nominated. This is their 20th submission.

Iraq: Baghdad Messi (Sahim Omar Kalifa)

In 2014 Sahim Omar Kalifa’s short film, Bagdad Messi made the Oscar shortlist.

Now, a decade later he’s expanded and adapted it into a feature resulting in a gripping and quite moving story of an 11-year-old soccer-loving boy, Hamoudi (a wonderful Ahmed Mohamed Abdullah), who is caught in the crossfire of fight between a private US security firm (where his father is employed) and anti-American locals. He is maimed in a suicide bombing and must now cope with losing his leg and being mocked by the local boys. Meanwhile he and his parents are forced to relocate from Bagdad to a small village. His father is seen as a traitor and the family is financially struggling.

Set in 2009, six years into the Iraq War, the film pulls no punches in depicting a pre-teen whose dreams are dashed because of forces beyond his control. (The young Abdullah actually lost part of his leg in a missile attach when he was four.) The film also shows the vehement divisiveness between the Sunni and Shia Muslims.

In a most harrowing sequence, Hamoudi steps on a landmine and a bunch of kids must think fast to figure out how to save him. I’m not sure how realistic the nail-biting scene is but it reminded me of Moldova’s highly underrated submission last year, Ioane Bobeica’s Thunders, all about the dangers of land mines…and children.

The film’s title comes from Hamoudi’s soccer star hero, Barcelona’s Lionel Messi.

Iraq has never been nominated.

This is their 13th submission.

Slovenia: Family Therapy (Sonja Prosenc)

Borrowing from Pasolini’s Teorema and Lanthimos’s Dogtooth—but not as biting as either–Slovenian helmer Sonja Prosenc gives us Family Therapy, a highly stylized, absurdist take on the story of a handsome young stranger arriving to shake up the lives of a nouveau riche family (this fam literally live in a glass house!) Julien (Aliocha Schneider) is the alleged son of the feckless patriarch Aleks (Marko Mandić), who enjoys a cushy life with his aloof wife Olivia (Katarina Stegnar, a dead ringer for Robin Wright) and their petulant daughter Agata (Mila Bezjak).

These are people that see a refugee family stranded on the road because their car is on fire and keep driving. “Fucking elite and their privileged children” is how the matriarch of the refugee family spells it out. Only Julien is put off.

Julien, who does not come from wealth, disrupts the peace with his sexy swagger and kindness. Schneider is a smoldering screen presence, but the screenplay doesn’t allow for enough of the sinister to creep in, so everyone behaves quite bizarrely but, in the end, the only real threat comes from the creatures of the wild. Tech credits are fab here, especially the classical-blend score.

We’ve seen this kind of class snobbery and dysfunctional entitlement portrayed onscreen before and with more satiric edge so I’m not so sure this is the kind of film that will be embraced by the Academy.

This is the third Slovenian submission directed by Sonja Prosenc (The Tree, in 2015 and History of Love in 2019)

Slovenia has never been nominated.

This is the country’s 28th submission. Last year’s Riders, Dominik Mencej’s debut feature, deserved consideration.

Hungary: Semmelweis (Lajos Koltai)

A huge box office sensation in Hungary, Lajos Koltai’s largely fictionalized biopic, Semmelweis, is buoyed by Miklós H. Vecsei’s towering titular performance.

Hungarian Dr. Ignac Semmelweis is one of those fairly unknown but true medical pioneers who realized antiseptic procedures (hand-washing with bleach) could save many lives. Even in his lifetime he was known as the “savior of mothers.” But his findings were rejected by the established medical profession who mocked and tried to discredit him.

The film, based on those facts, is set in 19th century Vienna, where mothers and their children are dying at an epidemic rate of puerperal fever. The head of the hospital and his Austrian cronies look down on Hungarians and specifically refuse to take Semmeweis’s concerns and theories seriously, ultimately forcing a young midwife he’s romantically involved with to spy on him. And, later, trying to scapegoat the headstrong protag in a wildly entertaining  courtroom scene. It’s all very 1930’s high Hollywood drama where the betrayals and twists are way too predictable and the villains too mustache-twirling.

What is masterful is Vecsei’s turn as the difficult, determined and dedicated doctor as well as Koltai’s amazing attention to period detail.

The director was Oscar-nominated for his gorgeous cinematography on Guiseppe Tornatore’s Malèna. His film Fateless was submitted by Hungary in 2005.

Hungary has been nominated 10 times with two wins (István Szabó’s Mephisto in 1981 and László Nemes’s Son of Saul in 2015). Szabó has the most Hungarian Oscar submissions with 5.

This is the country’s 60th submission.

Slovakia: The Hungarian Dressmaker (Iveta Grofova)

Slovak director Iveta Grófová’s delivers a somber, sobering tale of survival and heroism with her third feature, The Hungarian Dressmaker, based on the novella Ema and the Death’s Head by Peter Krištúfek and set against the backdrop of the Nazi puppet Slovak state near the Hungarian border during WW2.

It’s 1942 in Bratislava and Marika (Alexandra Borbély) is a struggling Hungarian widow of a Slovak soldier who finds herself in a quandary when a young Jewish boy, Šimon (Nico Klimek), shows up in her barn. Milan Ondrík plays a Slovak officer demanding a relationship with Marika.

The film is a strong entry into the Holocaust-film genre, depicting a geographic area decimated by Hitler’s forces not often shown in cinema. Dressmaker delves into the honest and angry reactions from Hungarians towards the Nazi collaborators and the fear instilled in an entire population as microcosm for all of Europe at that time.

Borbély anchors the film giving Marika a quiet fury.

Slovakia has never been nominated.

This is Slovakia’s 28th submission.

Hong Kong: Twilight Of The Warriors: Walled In (Soi Cheang)

Part Blade Runner, Aliens, The Warriors, and many other films, director Sol Cheang’s action extravaganza, Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In, has the most fascinating backstory as it’s set in Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City, one of the most densely populated places on the planet back in the ’80s/’90s. Initially built as an Imperial Chinese military fort in 1898, it became a haven for refugees, post WW2 and with no government body and it’s 6.4 labyrinthine acres of tall structures attracted gambling, prostitution, drugs and sundry gang criminal activity. (The fort was demolished in 1994). Cheang does a mean job of recreated this mammoth, suffocating village and peppering it with every possible kind of misfit.

The blockbuster film, adapted from the comic manga series City Of Darkness by Andy Seto, which is based on a novel written by Yuyi with screenplay by Au Kin-yee, Shum Kwan-sin, Chan Taili, Lai Chun, centers on one undocumented young man Chan Lok-kwun (Raymond Lam), who is seeking a fake ID and finds himself being hunted by one of the nasty triad leader, Mr. Big (Sammo Hung). He seeks refuge in the Walled City ruled by Cyclone (a cool and fab Louis Koo). There is a lot of plot and even more, often dizzying, martial arts sequence, many exciting to watch, some too frenetically CGI’d to enjoy.

But it’s the relationships in the film that matter most, and I wish the screenwriters and director had focused more time on those since the actors, especially Terrance Lau, Tony Wu, Richie Jen and German Cheung, are terrific.

And the giggly asshole character, King (Philip Ng), having indestructible spirit powers made the film an increasingly frustrating sit since there was no way to kill him, until the creatives decided there was.

When the film soars, though, it is a thrilling homage to the Hong Kong cinema of the ‘80s. And with two sequels already given a greenlight, I only hope the focus will less on CGI and more on coherent plot and relatable character relationships.

Hong Kong has been nominated 3 times, Zhang Yimou’s Raise The Red Lantern in 1992, Chen Kaige’s Farewell My Concubine in 1994 and Derek Tsang’s Better Days in 2020 and was shortlisted for Won Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster in 2014.

This was Hong Kong’s 43rd submission with no wins.

Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In is currently available on Digital, 4K, Blu-ray and DVD from Well Go USA. 

Turkey: Life (Hayat) (Zeki Demirkubuz)

“How can a person be so vengeful? “

–asks a daughter about her unforgiving father in Life.

Zeki Demirkubuz’s overlong, absorbing yet sometimes infuriating new film Life begins as a study of the perils of patriarchy and then strives to be more philosophical and meditative as the non-linear narrative unfolds. Unfortunately, so much of the focus is strictly on the male characters, that the young woman at the center of the messy plot truly gets short shrift.

Hicran (an excellent Miray Daner, doing her best with a role that demands inscrutability) flees her small town when she is bullied into marrying a man she barely knows. Her lovely father says he will kill her if he ever sees her again (and he does, indeed, try). Hicran’s mother is pretty much, a cipher and her jilted fiancé, Riza (an impressive Burak Dakak), decides to journey to Istanbul to find her and maybe discover why she ran away.

Here’s where we get a host of long, arduous scenes with supporting characters we don’t give a fig about, all male, who drone on and on about philosophical gobbledygook. It’s bad enough we have to revisit the horrific father over and over again with his constant death threats.

Finally, something interesting happens that involves Hicran, Riza and a gun. Then Hicran is back home, scared to death of her murderous dad, forced to marry a 57-year-old man and extremely unhappy. And the plot continues.

At a running time of 2 hours and 40 minutes (cut from its initial 3 hours and 13 minutes!!!) the film suffers from too many extraneous scenes with these absurd men, who learn to mistreat women via their culture and religion and talk nonstop in a woe-is-me manner. Meanwhile, the women are forced to listen, and, of course, subjugate themselves or get beaten –or worse…

Perhaps Demirkubuz is trying to make some kind of comment on this but to focus so much energy on these men, almost demanding our sympathy, while the real victim, Hicran, remains deliberately enigmatic—feels misogynistic.

Don’t get me wrong, Demirkubuz is a very talented filmmaker and there is a great deal that is outstanding in his work, especially filmically–his elliptical style as well as his clever framing, But Life would have massively benefited from a refocus—zeroing in on the only two characters worth watching, Hicran and Riza. There’s a terrific 90-minute film buried in this 160-minute behemoth. He should have also consulted a co-writer, who was female.

Turkey has submitted to the Oscars 31 times with no nominations and was shortlisted in 2008 for Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Three Monkeys.

Malta: Castillo (Abigail Mallia)

Abigail Mallia’s ambitious and engrossing third feature, Castillo, inspired by a novel by Clare Azzopardi, is a non-linear, labyrinthine story of a group of women caught in generational secrets, lies and familial strife and trauma.

I found the first third to be rather confusing and convoluted but as the narrative unfolds the movie began to intrigue and envelop me with its inventive twists and enigmatic turns. And while the ending could have been more daring, I was still impressed and went back and rewatched that first third.

The film is set in 2006, 1979-early ‘80s (a time of social injustice and unchecked police brutality in Malta) and the fictional world of the most fascinating character’s novel.  Warning: You may need a chart to initially decipher the plot, settings and characters machinations.

Amanda (Analise Mifsud), in 2006, is a troubled young woman who has decided to face some past demons and confront her mother, Emma, as well as past sins involving her father that occurred decades earlier when he was a cop. These revelations also shed light on the murder of her aunt, Catherine (a commanding Rachel Genovese), a popular crime fiction novelist whose main character is the wise-cracking police inspector Castillo (Mark Doneo, having a grand time). Catherine is having a lesbian affair with a local politico which also factors into the overabundant plot.

Some of the best and most clever scenes involve the titular character stopping his author mid-sentence to try and force a rewrite.

The wonderful work by Genovese and Doneo make Castillo more than a worthwhile sit.

Malta has submitted four times (one did not make the final list).

The country has never been nominated.

Poland: Under The Volcano (Damian Kocur)

With the Ukrainian-Russian war still going on—after almost three years–and other conflicts breaking out worldwide, Polish director Damian Kocur’s second feature, Under the Volcano, is, sadly, incredibly timely and relatable.

The story centers on a Ukrainian family vacationing on the resort island of Tenerife, Spain, on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. They are unable to return home, displaced, stranded—now, refugees.

A scene that speaks volumes, set in the hotel, shows the father (Roman Lutskyi) reading off the cities that are under attack by Russia while a conga line of tourists dances around them, gleefully singing “Guantanamera.” The irony astounds.

Kocur tends to devote too much time to the surly teen daughter immersed in her online world—I never quite warmed to her. But there is tremendous power in the tense scenes between dad and stepmom that made the film more than worthwhile.

Poland has been nominated 13 times, winning for Ida in 2014. The country’s first nod was for Roman Polanski’s Knife in the Water in 1963 and its most recent was in 2022 for Jerzy Skolimowski’s EO.

This is Poland’s 56th submission.

Tunisia: Take My Breath (Nada Mezni Hafaiedh)

When we first meet 23-year-old Shams (Amina Ben Ismail), the character is secretly frolicking with hot fisherman, Habib (Mohammed Mrad). But although Shams lives as a woman, we soon discover their identity is more complex. Shams is intersex and would like to remain so, but in her country they must choose to be male or female. Meanwhile, a villainous (one-dimensional) villager is intent on destroying Sham, especially after discovering Sham and his abused wife shared a kiss. And the film gets more bizarre and goes a bit off the rails from there, but still remains interesting.

At the heart of Nada Mezni Hafaiedh’s third feature, Take My Breath, is a story of discovery, tenacity and bravery. Intersex people have a difficult time being accepted in so many parts of the world where gender is still seen as strictly binary. Hafaiedh tells Shams’s story with dignity and a demands that attention be paid.

Last year, Kaouther Ben Hania’s Four Daughters made the short list and was nominated for Best Documentary. Ben Hania’s bold, The Man Who Sold His Skin received a surprise nomination in 2020.

This is Tunisia’s 11th submission.

Cambodia: Meeting With Pol Pot (Rithy Panh)

The first 30 minutes of Rithy Panh’s otherwise compelling film, Meeting With Pol Pot, is rather dull but it builds in intensity, with the keen use of actual footage shot in 1978. Inspired by journalist Elizabeth Becker’s book, When The War Was Over, the docu-film follows three French journalists invited to chat with the horrific dictator and Khmer Rouge leader, Pol Pot.

The always-terrific Irène Jacob (Kieslowski’s Red) plays Becker, who sees right through the charade being put on for western journalists, while Grégoire Colin plays more of a starstruck sycophant of Pol Pot, unwilling to believe his friend of 30 years could actually be slaughtering people.

Rithy Panh’s powerful Oscar-nominated doc, The Missing Picture, about the Cambodian genocide, captured the horrors in a more palpable manner.

Cambodia has submitted 12 times and received one nomination for Pahn’s The Missing Picture. The country made the short list in 2022 with Davy Chou’s Return to Seoul.

Pahn’s work has now been submitted by Cambodia 4 times including Rice People in 1994 and Graves Without a Name in 2018.

Panama: Wake Up Mom (Arianne Benedetti)

Mila Romedetti wears no less than four hats with her second feature, Wake Up Mom, (Despierta Mamá) writing, producing, directing and starring in the taut, stirring romance-thriller. The sometimes-wonky narrative moves back and forth in time as we initially watch master chef Ali (Romedetti) reconnect with a grade school crush, JP (handsome, charming Erick Elias), and fall for each other all over again.

Years later, after a tragedy, Ali must deal with the mysterious disappearance of her young daughter. At least two sinister townsfolk might know her whereabouts.

Romedetti’s true strengths lie in her impressive and compelling directing style.

In 2017, Ramedetti’s first feature, Beyond Brotherhood was Panama’s Oscar entry.

Panama has never been nominated. Abner Benaim’s Plaza Catedral made the short list in 2021.

This is the country’s 11th submission.

Greece: Murderess (Eva Nathena) 

“I wish I had a dozen boys…and not a single girl…”

So begins the lovely ditty sung by children at the beginning of the film Murderess.

A whole new level of Greek tragedy can be found in Evan Nathena’s unrelentingly grim feature debut, based on the novel by Alexandros Papadiamantis, about early 20th century misogyny in Greece.

Hadoula (a grittily determined Karyofyllia Karabeti) is an elderly midwife who, at the behest of local fathers, murders newborn baby girls because the men cry economic hardship. Of course, boys are welcome happily into the world, regardless of the woman’s dowry. Haunted by her mother and her horrific life’s work, Hadoula  begins to mercy kill—ending the lives of female infants and even young girls to save them from a life of abuse, torture and rape at the hands of fathers and husbands. She sees herself as being sent by the Virgin Mary

Murderess is a scathing peek into an evil, religion-infested patriarchal world that still exists in some countries. And, like The Girl with the Needle, the movie is not an easy sit with its depiction of grief, misery, heartache, infanticide, gendercide. Not exactly a barrel of laughs.

This is the third submission centered on child murder and the umpteenth on horrific violence against women which speaks volumes to the freedom that filmmakers, and especially female filmmakers, now have to tell these stories.

A great controversy followed the Greek submissions this year where there was an argument made that the government had gotten involved in the process and tried to sway the outcome. Protests ensued, as did denials. 21 out of the 26 film submissions were withdrawn from consideration by the filmmakers.

Greece has been nominated 5 times, with no wins.

The last nomination for Greece was in 2010 for Yorgos Lanthimos’s Dogtooth.

This is the country’s 44th submission.

Singapore: La Luna (M Raihan Halim)

Singapore’s entry, La Luna, is a charming multi-genre concoction, directed by Raihan Halim centered on Hanie (a terrific Sharifah Amani) a young woman who moves to a very conservative small town and opens up her own lingerie shop, exclusively for women and as a haven for those who need a respite or shelter from the suffocating rule of the patriarch—in particular one horrible old man who has a stranglehold over the town.

Halim takes on the theme of traditional old-world values vs. a more modern and less misogynistic approach. The director nicely blends high comedy with disturbing drama as well as touches of romance and suspense.

Singapore has never been nominated. This is the country’s 18th submission.

Armenia: Yasha And Leonid Brezhnev (Edgar Baghdasaryan)

Edgar Baghdasaryan’s often stinging dark comedy, Yasha And Leonid Brezhnev, is a film where a brief brush-up on history is recommended, specifically 1960-80’s communist dictators. If you already know a little about Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Josip Broz Tito, Nicolae & Elena Ceaușescu and Yuri Andropov, then you’re good to go. If not, hit your Google.

The absurdist dramedy is focused on Yasha (Mais Sarkisyan) a retired Armenian, who is nostalgic for the past when the USSR and, specifically Brezhnev, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was still in power.

Yasha devoted himself to his job in a “shit factory,” for decades and is now retired and his mind is going. His mania has him fraternizing with Brezhnev and the above-mentioned communist leaders. As he devolves more and more into dementia his mind has him in wackily surreal scenes where he’s eating caviar with the Premier and U.S. President Gerald Ford, watching Swan Lake performed in a swamp by a trio of freezing young women and sitting in on important Soviet meetings. It’s Yasha’s need to hold onto a type of world he believed in all his life. He’s nostalgic for a less complicated time, even if that time was marked by totalitarianism—scarily relatable to today’s world.

Armenia made the shortlist for the very first time last year with Michael A Goorjian’s Amerikatsi.

Baghdasaryan’s 2019 film Lengthy Night was entered by Armenia in 2019.

Twice disqualified, Armenia has submitted 14 times.

Serbia: Russian Consul (Miroslav Lekić) 

More history googling…

Knowing a bit about the history of the 1970s strife in Serbia, Kosovo and Albania and the interpersonal prejudices among the people, will immensely help in understanding Miroslav Lekić’s Russian Consul. It might also behoove a Western viewer to Google Yugoslavia and do some Russian history research. You can appreciate the film without knowing most of the above, but it surely helps.

There’s also a line in the film about Serbs living on the seam between East and West, Vatican and Islam, that is good to keep in mind.

Based on Vuk Drašković’s novel, Russian Consul, the film centers on a Serbian nationalist doctor, Ilija Jugović, who is transferred to a hospital in Prizren, Kosovo, after a patient dies and he is blamed for it. There he treats Ljubo Božović, a history prof who now thinks he’s a major player from 19th century Imperial Russia (before the revolution). He tries to help the babbling and deluded man but becomes embroiled in a spider’s web of political intrigue and machinations led by a local bigwig who wants Božović dead. The doctor is soon framed for his murder and sent to prison.

The first half of this overlong (147-minute) film is too repetitive and plays like a 1940s Hollywood spy thriller. The melodrama! But in the second half, strangely when our protagonist is hauled off to prison, the film takes off and gets much more interesting with deeper and more nuanced characterizations. Jugović (Nebojša Dugalić) is like a male Norma Rae figure, fighting for what he believes in, damn the consequences.

Lekić’s movie has its heart in the right place and is quite timely with all the insanity going on in so many parts of the world where truth doesn’t seem to matter anymore (whose truth?), fascism is on the rise and division seems to be sowed into the fabric of most cultures.

Serbia has never been nominated but did make the short list once in 2007 for The Trap.

This is the country’s 31st submission.

Lekić’s movie, Labyrinth, was submitted by Serbia in 2002.

FYI: The former Yugoslavia is now 7 countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Kosovo.

Yugoslavia received 6 nominations, no wins from 1958 to 1991. Yugoslavia submitted 29 times.

South Africa: Old Righteous Blues (Muneera Sallies)

Muneera Sallies’s Old Righteous Blues could have been titled Secrets and Lies in South Africa. This compelling work follows one young man’s ambition to be a drum major in the fractured Old Righteous Blues Christmas Choir Band and on his journey discovers long hidden skeletons in the closet of his community (and his family) that to led to a contentious feud that began decades earlier by a group of “uncles” that still call the shots in the band as well as the town.

The film written by Carol Shore, really hooked me with its continuous scenes of dramatic tension between family members that build to a tragedy. But the lack of punishment for one unwavering patriarchal figure’s horrific deeds causing so much grief and heartache for so many, really pissed me off. And maybe that’s the point. But it still left me feeling angry. Forgiveness and redemption are fine as long as there’s some kind of accountability.

South Africa has been nominated 2 times and won for Tsotsi in 2005.

This is their 20th submission.

 Peru: Yana-Wara (Óscar Catacora, Tito Catacora)

In 2018, Óscar Catacora’s film Eternity was the Peruvian submission. It was also the first film in the Aymara language ever entered. Catacora died while his follow-up film, Yana-Wara, was in pre-production and his Uncle Tito took over the shoot. The result is a beguiling look at the damages religion and tradition can have on a culture, specifically on young women, who always seem to be viewed as either virtuous or licentious.

In the case of the 13-year-old ill-fated titular character, “when it comes to pain and suffering she’s right up there with Elizabeth Taylor,” to quote Truvy in Robert Harling’s Steel Magnolias. But Yana-Wara’s tragedy is not to be made light of. Both her parents are dead, her mother in childbirth. The young girl lost her speech when she was struck by lightning. She’s then molested by the town teacher and becomes pregnant. Her grandfather sees no other way but to send her to live with said teacher, where she is beaten and kicked by him. She runs away. An abortion is performed on her and she is then seen as cursed by town soothsayers. And she must be tortured to rid herself of the demon. And that’s just for starters!

Despite the ridiculous pile-up of humiliations and horrors this poor girl is put through, Luz Diana Mamani as Yana-Wara always finds her humanity. Her sad, rarely-hopeful, face speaks volumes.

The film is a deliberately harsh indictment of patriarchy and just how the scales of justice never seem to tip towards the female gender. Set in a small village in the Andes the film is shot in stark black and white which aids in the viewer’s empathy for the poor girl.

Peru has been nominated once for The Milk of Sorrow in 2009.

This is their 31st submission.

Taiwan: Old Fox (Hsiao Ya-Chuan) B

Hsiao Ya-Chuan’s evocative film Old Fox is set in late 1980s Taiwan and centers on 11-year-old Liao Jie (Bai Run-Yin) and his sweet, caring working class father, Liao Tai-lai (Liu Kuan-Ting) who dreams of opening his own hair salon but is too timid to ask Boss Xie, aka Old Fox (Akio Chen, excellent), the mobster-like landlord who also seems to run most of the local businesses.

Boss Xie takes a liking to Liao Jie, seeing him as resembling his younger self, and begins in impart his own ruthless survival wisdom on the boy which runs in the face of what his father believes. Boss Xie sees the world as dog-eat-dog and encourages a cold and distant attitude towards people.

In such an economically-challenged world, can empathy win out or is it every man (boy) for himself?

Old Fox is an old-fashioned morality tale where the audience knows what the outcome will be but go along for the ride because the filmmaking is so compelling.

Taiwan has been nominated 3 times, all Ang Lee films–The Wedding Banquet and Eat Drink Man Woman in 1993 and 1994, winning for Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000.

This is Taiwan’s 50th submission.

Algeria: Algiers (Chakib Taleb-Bendiab)

Chakib Taleb-Bendiab’s feature debut Algiers is an assured police procedural and suspense thriller centering on a child kidnapping that unearths a host of past skeletons in the city’s closet going back decades. The haunted city of Algiers is a major character in the film, still recovering from a civil war that ended 20 years ago. One can argue that Algiers is the place where modern day terrorism was born during Algeria’s battle for independence against France.

The film’s main characters aren’t always fully drawn, but Algiers is worthwhile for its moody, atmospheric storytelling.

Algeria won the Oscar once, the first time in competition, for Costa Gavras’ Z, which was also nominated for Best Picture of 1969.

The country has received 4 other nominations and has submitted 25 times.

Switzerland: Queens aks Reinas (Klaudia Reynicke)

Swiss-Peruvian director Klaudia Reynicke’s Reinas (now Queens) is set in Lima, Peru amidst the social and political upheaval of the early 1990s. The film focuses on a mother, Elena (an excellent Jimena Lindo) and her two daughters who want to leave the politically-fraught Peru for a better life in the U.S. where Elena has been offered a job, but need written permission from the girl’s estranged father, Carlos (Gonzalo Molina, terrific), who decides he wants to reconnect with “mis reinas,”his “queens.” Carlos is a lovable mess, but as selfish as he seems, he only wants to do what is best for his girls.

Reinas tells a simple but strong story about how much people can be affected by forces they cannot control. I just wanted the stakes to be a bit higher.

Switzerland has been nominated 5 times, winning twice–1984’s Dangerous Moves and1990’s Journey of Hope.

Last year, Carmen Jaquier’s audacious feature debut, Thunder, should have made more of a splash.

This is the country’s 52nd submission.

Reinas is currently playing in theaters in Manhattan and Los Angeles via Outsider Pictures.

Kazakhstan: Bauryna Salu (Askhat Kuchinchirekov)

The ancient nomadic tribal practice of “bauryna salu” is when a child (usually newborn) is given to a close relative to raise and care for them into adulthood. Kazakhstan is in Central Asia, but various forms of this tradition can be found throughout the world and Israel’s submission last year, the terrific and highly underrated, Seven Blessings, explored a similar custom.

Kazakh writer-director Askhat Kuchinchirekov was, himself, given away to his grandmother when he was a little over a year old. His debut feature, Bauryna Salu, follows a young boy (wonderful Yersultan Yermanov) victim of said custom who, when he turns 12, loses his grandmother and must reunite with the family that gave him away.

The narrative moves very slowly, but Yermanov is such a compelling figure, we don’t mind. His character feels lost, confused, angry and unwanted.  In an intense bullying scene at school, his wrath is unleashed. And in a cathartic scene near the end of the film, the boy finally explodes all his rage at his father. This kind of primal scream gives the boy the kind of agency necessary to move on.

Stunningly photographed, the pic deals with themes such as identity, familial relations and the ramifications of antiquated old-world traditions still seen as noble.

The country was nominated once for Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol and made the short list 2 other times.

This is Kazakhstan’s 18th submission.

Willa has acquired worldwide distribution rights and is planning a theatrical and streaming release in 2025.

The Rest

Mexico: Sujo (Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez)

A tale of survival and reckoning, Fernanda Valadez and Astrid Rondero’s Sujo follows the early life of a 4-year-old boy whose cartel-member father is assassinated. His Aunts raise him in isolation but once he’s older, his dad’s legacy catches up to him and he must decide his own destiny.

Sins of the father, a grand theme in The Godfather, burns bright here as our titular character is targeted simply because of patriarchal transgressions. Atmospheric and sometimes poetic, Sujo also lacks a focused and enveloping narrative.

Mexico has been nominated 9 times, winning once for Roma in 2018. The nomination before that was in 2010 for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Biutiful.

This is Mexico’s 57th submission.

Sujo is in theaters December 6, 2024, via The Forge.

Bulgaria: Triumph (Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov)

Maria Bakalova, currently playing Ivanka Trump in Ali Abbasi’s controversial film, The Apprentice, stars in Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov’s Bulgarian satire, Triumph.

Oddly inspired by real events, the initially clever film turns into a rather one-note joke spread super thin.

Set right after the fall of communism, the film brings together a host of looney army officers and one ambitious psychic who may or may not be a charlatan, along with a young girl who actually shows psychic promise (Bakalova) to excavate an alien artifact that is supposed to change Bulgarian history. The film is a broad dark comedy about political power, corruption, manipulation and just how silly people will behave in the face of wanting to be a part of something bigger than themselves.

The real reason to see the film is Bakalova’s comically committed performance. Nominated for a 2020 Supporting Oscar for Borat Subsequent Moviefilm, she continues to show great promise.

Grozeva and Valchanov have been submitted by Bulgaria in 2017 for Glory and in 2020 for The Father.

This is the country’s 35th submission.

Bulgaria has never been nominated. 

Chile: In Her Place (Maite Alberdi)

Doc filmmaker and two-time Oscar nominee, Maite Alberdi makes her feature debut with Chile’s submission, In Her Place, based on real historic facts about a famous writer who murdered her lover in 1956 and the trial that ensued. Oddly, the film’s narrative focus is not on Maria Carolina Geel (a perfectly steely and enigmatic Francisca Lewin), the accused murderess, but instead on a timid fictional protag named Mercedes (Elisa Zulueta), who works for the main judge on the case.

Geel ended up going to prison and writing a best seller, but the Chilean president later pardoned her after an appeal by Nobel Prize-winning poet Gabriela Mistral. That story and the story of her brazen, unapologetic homicide could have made for an extraordinary film. Instead, we get a slightly entertaining, tonally-odd pic where there are no real major stakes, but the message is one of female empowerment. Mercedes takes a break from her glum existence to see what it was like to live like Geel.

The filmmaker should have given Mercedes a better ending—one where she could actually escape her hum-drum life.

Alberdi’s has received 2 past Oscar nominations—both for Best Documentary: The Mole Agent in 2019 and The Eternal Memory in 2023.

Chile’s submissions have been nominated twice and won once for Sebastián Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman (2017).

This is Chile’s 29th submission.

In Her Place is currently streaming on Netflix. 

Dominican Republic: Aire: Just Breathe (Leticia Tonos Paniagua)

Leticia Tonos Paniagua’s visually ambitious feature Aire: Just Breathe owes a great debt to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity. Set in a dystopian future devastated by a “great chemical war,” the movie centers on Tania (Sophie Gaëlle) a biologist who tries to inseminate herself to save humankind. She is aided in her task (and her survival) by VIDA (marvelously voiced by Paz Vega), the HAL-like AI system in charge. Tania is the only human survivor left as everyone else is either dead or has fled the planet. Well, almost everyone…

When Azarias (Jalsen Santana), a mysterious outsider, invades Tania’s life, everything changes as he is desperately needed to help save them.

The film’s most intriguing relationship is between Tania and VIDA and Tonos Paniagua has a lot of fun imbuing it with just the right amount of buddy comedy, until it, predictably, turns menacing.

The Dominican Republic has never been nominated.

This is Tonos Paniagua’s fourth DR film submission. Her stunning satire, A State of Madness, was entered in 2020.

The country has submitted 17 times.

Nepal: Shambhala (Min Bahadur Bham)

Set in a polyandrous Himalayan village, Min Bahadur Bham’s overlong (150 min), bizarre tale of one woman’s journey to find her husband and save her name demands patience since the pace is sluggish, yet Shambhala is evocative and visually captivating plus one cannot help but root for the central character.

Pema (Thinley Lhamo) is a new bride to three brothers, her true love Tashi (Tenzin Dalha), his monk sib Karma (Sonam Topden), and their much younger brother, Dawa (Karma Wangyal Gurung). Tashi leaves his devoted Pema for a vital trade journey, and she finds herself pregnant and the victim of rumors that the child is not Tashi’s. He refuses to return home so Pema, along with Karma, must find Tashi to set the record straight.

Pema’s almost sitcomish relationship with Karma is contrasted with her sexy, romantic connection to Tashi. The Dawa character is simply annoying.

There are merciful comic moments, but Shambhala is mostly a very serious and slow sit. And the payoff is muted.

Shambhala was the first Nepali film to play a major film festival in competition, the Berlinale back in February.

Nepal has received one Oscar nomination for its very first entry in 1999, Eric Valli’s Caravan (aka Himalaya: Caravan)

This is the country’s 14th submission.

Colombia: La Suprema  (Felipe Holguin)

La Suprema is a small Colombian town with no electricity and little water, that’s been erased from the map. One of its inhabitants, Laureana (Elizabeth Martinez), a teen girl who dreams of being a boxer, finds out that her estranged uncle will be fighting in a champion boxing match live on TV and she, and most of the town, set about to try and figure out how they can watch it.

This simple premise is behind Felipe Holguín’s pleasant and sometimes insightful first feature, La Suprema. While the film meanders and loses focus, a late, extended scene between Laureana and a former boxing trainer Efrain (Antonio Jimenez) where they discuss their values is a potent treat and shows what the film could have been had Holguin not opted for so much silliness.

Colombia was nominated once in 2015 for Ciro Guerra’s Embrace Of The Serpent and made the shortlist in 2018 for Birds Of Passage.

This is the country’s 33rd entry.

Paraguay: The Last (Los últimos) (Sebastián Peña Escobar)

Documentary filmmaker Sebastian Pena Escobar examines the devastating effects of climate change in The Last Los (Los últimos).

The movie is essentially an apocalyptic road trip through a decimated Paraguay with the filmmaker himself as well as Escobar’s uncle, ornithologist Jota Escobar, and his uncle’s German friend, entomologist Ulf Drechsel.

“Why does everything repeat itself?” The three engage in dialogue, some of it jovial, about man’s horrible treatment of the planet while dystopian (yet oh so real) images awash the screen. I teared up as a host of cattle were under threat from wildfires.

The film is a warning as well as a sometimes-fascinating account of what humanity’s selfishness and shortsightedness has wrought.

This is the 8th submission from Paraguay.

The country has yet to be nominated.

Bolivia: Own Hand (Rodrigo “Gory” Patino)

Based on Tribes of the Inquisition by journalist Roberto Navia, Rodrigo Patino’s Own Hands, tackles the nature of mob justice by chronicling the story of a rather powerless prosecutor attempting to control the staggering number of lynchings happening in a small town in Bolivia. Apparently these types of horrific lynchings go on frequently in Bolivia and other South American countries.

While there’s no arguing that the subject matter is important, this film suffers from a rather convoluted script that leads to a half-baked ending. It does, however, show what happens when innocent people are accused of crimes and an angry village calls for blood. And how certain power-hungry men take advantage by leading the mob to bloodthirsty murder.

Bolivia has never been nominated.

This is their 17th submission.

Estonia: 8 Views Of Lake Biwa Nov 9 virtual (Marco Ratt)

In Marko Raat’s sometimes beguiling, often taxing feature, 8 Views of Lake Biwa, prayers are frequently heard in voice over, usually whispered, and onscreen we are immersed in his ravishing visual storytelling that eschews narrative convention. Think Terrence Malick, only more elusive.

Partly based on the 1911 novel by Max Dauthendey, this maddingly meditative film blends Baltic and Japanese art and culture and is told via the Japanese “Eight Views” tradition (Google it).

Set in a village near the Estonian-Russian border, the story itself begins with a tragic event and then follows a number of figures directly and indirectly involved in the incident with some outrageous plot deviations (a municipal inspector who must sleep with an animal-like woman who’s never seen the sun or the moon is just one bizarre example) as we are privy to the strange customs and beliefs of these truly odd characters.

Somewhere in the muddle is a story of hope and a call for forgiveness and understanding. I did kind of love the sinister tattoo’d dude whose face is hidden by a superhero helmet and who has eyes inked in the nipple area of his chest. I’d watch a movie centered on his character alone.

The film does cast a seductive spell, when it’s not making you want to scream.

Estonia has received one nomination in 2014 for Zaza Urushadze’s Tangerines.

This is their 22nd submission.

Cameroon: Kismet (Ngang Romanus Ntseh)

Wambo (Lum Nora, a force) is a 25-year-old Cameroonian Christian woman who, at first befriends Ibrahim, an uneducated Muslim man, but finds herself falling in love with him. Kismet’s somewhat baffling narrative, having to do with land disputes, is set against the backdrop of cultural and religious tension and Wambo seems to constantly be in danger of being slaughtered. It’s her determination and decision to fly in the face of the hate around her that drives the story.

The wish to change prejudices is a theme that makes Ngang Romanus’s film admirable, if overlong and messy.

This is Cameroon’s 7th submission with no nomination, and Romanus’s second film entry (Hidden Dreams in 2021).

Vietnam: Peach Blossom, Pho and Piano (Phi Tien Son) 

Phi Tien Son’s Peach Blossom, Pho and Piano is a love story set against the backdrop of the bloody 60-day Battle of Hanoi when the Communist-led Việt Minh sent an army into the city, setting it to ruins.

The film follows a young soldier (Doan Quoc Dam) and his love Thuc Huong (Thuy Linh), a pianist who enlists in the fighting.

The film’s battle sequences are alternately effective and overly CGI and the storytelling is a bit muddled, but the intensity of the romance shines through.

Vietnam has been nominated once in 1993 for The Scent of Green Papaya.

This is the country’s 21st submission.

Palestine: From Ground Zero (22 directors)

From Ground Zero is comprised of 22 short films from 22 different directors documenting the hopes and dreams as well as the horrific living conditions of the people currently living in war-torn Gaza, who are trying to survive in a place under fire each day. Some are quite affecting. Some are very amateurish. The shorts tend to avoid politics or assessing blame. The power comes from seeing the suffering…and the resilience. But the lack of any kind of discussion of history or responsibility is glaring.

This submission is a collection of short films, so should it really qualify as a feature?

Palestine has received 2 nominations. This is their 17th submission.

Not My Cup of Movie Tea 

Montenegro: Supermarket (Nemanja Bečanović) 

Montenegrin filmmaker Nemanja Bečanović brings us the kind of absurdist comedy that either tries one’s patience for 75 minutes or delights another type of audience that loves a quirky, repetitive meditation on loneliness, repression and communication, or lack thereof.

The film is set entirely in a supermarket after closing, where the enigmatic Robert (Bojan Žirović), becomes the king in his palace treating the store as if it’s a place to do what he wants, eat what he desires and tamper with what he feels like messing with. Alas, his idyllic world alters when another Robert (Branimir Popović) shows up—older and sinister. Things go from creepy–younger Robert’s dining with a female mannequin— to eerie, the dramatic score setting the stage for some raised stakes—that never amount to much.

In the end, this bizarre, mercifully short two-hander will either truly engage you with its experimental nature or leave you cold and wishing Godot had arrived to set the supermarket on fire!

Montenegro has never been nominated. This is their 11th submission. 

Tajikistan: Melody (Behrouz Sebt Rasoul)

Behrouz Sebt Rasoul’s Melody was declined last year for not meeting a screening deadline. The story follows a music teacher and her desire to compose a song using 30 species of birds in order to please a group of children with cancer. The film tugs at your heartstrings, even when it defies any kind of logic or reason. We do get a great sense of culture and place, that western audiences aren’t usually privy to and there is an inspiring message about man’s necessity to rediscover his place in nature.

Tajikistan has submitted 4 time with two disqualifications due to late submissions, including Melody last year.

The country has never been nominated. 

Ukraine: La Palisiada (Philip Sotnychenko)

I’m not even going to pretend I was able to follow Philip Sotnychenko’s disturbing, convoluted yet sometimes intriguing first feature, La Palisiada. And while it has little chance of making the short list, it contains a number of involving scenes within a disjointed, meandering and deliberately enigmatic (obtuse?) narrative.

The film opens in 2021 at a dinner party where a couple then move off to the bedroom and the male proceeds to yell at the female non-stop about her father. The female moves out of frame, then back, holding a gun. And she shoots him. Cut to 1996 (post-Soviet collapse) and the story having something possibly to do with the parents of the female (who is an artist) from 2021 and an impossible to follow murder investigation.

La Palisiada is possibly wanting to make some kind of statement about how humans are violent and that will never change since we don’t care to recall the past. There’s also a murder suspect (who’s character exploration who would have made for a much more involving story, had they bothered) that appears to have been selected to be a scapegoat.

Here’s the thing, if I have to read a treatise on the director’s intent in order to attempt to comprehend his vision, and it’s still elusive, well, I give up. And so will most audiences.

Ukraine has never been nominated.

Last year’s FAR SUPERIOR entry, Mstyslav Chernov’s 20 Days in Mariupol, didn’t receive an International Feature nomination but did, rightly, win the Best Feature Documentary Oscar.

This is the country’s 17th submission.

La Palisiada is currently available to stream on FilmMovementPlus.com

Finland: Family Time (Tia Kouvo)

Tia Kouvo’s debut feature, Family Time, digs into the minutiae of a seriously unhappy family who gather together and, well, do nothing but complain and peck at one another. Kouvo likes to keep the camera at a distance but the effect, for me, was tedium. Yes, many lives are mundane and miserable, but do we need to see it portrayed onscreen in such a muted and impenetrable manner?

We are given so little backstory and hardly any front story.

Three quarters into this study in tolerance, there is a scene in a garage between a married couple with some dramatic heft…some. Had the film been about this relationship and really explored it, I might have cared more.

Finland was nominated once for Aki Kaurismäki’s 2002 film The Man Without a Past.Last year, his gem, Fallen Leaves, made the short list.

This is the country’s 38th submission. 

Nigeria,  Mai Martaba (Prince Daniel Aboki)

Produced and directed by Prince Daniel, Mia Martaba examines power, avarice and betrayal in an ancient African kingdom. When a Jallaban King selects his daughter to succeed him, breaking a vow in the process, a battle commences for rulership.

The film is admirable for its ambition, but the convoluted plot and broad characters made this an extremely difficult sit as did the jarring narration. Some of the production values are to be commended.

This is Nigeria’s fourth submission, including one disqualification. No nominations.

Iran: In The Arms of the Tree (Babak Khajeh Pasha)

Kimia and Farid have been married for 12 years, have two young sons, Taha and Alisan, but no longer get along and are on the verge of splitting up. One day the two kids disappear and were last seen near a river. That’s the basic plot of Babak Lotfi Khajepasha’s first feature In The Arms of the Tree. the film is sometimes interesting, too-often meandering and redundant.

Iran has won twice, both for Asghar Farhadi films (A Separation in 2011 and The Salesman in 2016) His films were also chosen three other times.

Iran has been nominated a total of 3 times.

This is the country’s 30th submission.

Austria: The Devil’s Bath (Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz)

The slow-to-a-crawl burn pic, The Devil’s Bath, set in 1750 Austria depicts the insanity that infested many a strict Christian community where suicide meant you were forever damned but murdering children was seen as a way towards salvation. The film opens with a horrific baby murder and then focuses on Agnes (Anja Plaschg) a recent bride who becomes increasingly unhappy with her life. So, the audience must spend a couple of torturous hours also in agony.

This is the kind of film most critics will embrace but will turn off a few. Count me in that latter category as I felt that Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala (Goodnight Mommy, The Lodge) crafted an initially intriguing but ultimately shock-for-shock’s sake movie where the end scroll was much more fascinating than the 2-hour sit.

I did find one portion of the disturbing plot of interest; Agnes’s husband, Wolf (David Scheid) is more into in his attractive male neighbor (who eventually commits suicide) than his wife—he doesn’t even consummate the marriage. There was a pregnant-with-possibilities story that is only hinted at. Perhaps a sequel, The Devil’s Gay Bath?

Austria submissions have received 4 nominations and two wins, The Counterfeiters(2007) and Amour (2012). Both Great Freedom (2021) and Corsage (2022) made the short list.

This is Franz and Fiala’s second Austrian entry. Goodnight Mommy was put forth in 2015.

This is Austria’s 48th submission.

The Devil’s Bath is currently in theaters via IFC/Shudder.

The Withdrawn:

Jordan: My Sweet Land (Sareen Hairabedian) 

Imagine being an 11-year-old boy and having the threat of war hanging over you constantly and the very imminent probability that you will need to evacuate from your home without warning?

There are many children throughout the world who, unfortunately, must live this way—it’s a shame the press and social media influencers don’t bother to investigate these areas of the world and, instead, only focus on the Middle East.

Jordanian-Armenian filmmaker Sareen Hairabedian’s doc, My Sweet Land, centers on 11-year-old Vrej, who lives in a small village in Karabakh in the republic of Artsakh—not officially recognized as a country by Armenia or Azerbaijan. Because of that, Azerbaijan has launched numerous attacks starting in 1994 and through September of 2023.

Vrej and his family have lived with uncertainty for three decades and have been displaced a number of times. The film reveals their struggles and pain as well as the sheer insanity of militarily training kids for war in order to fight for their homeland.

It’s truly sad that Jordan was forced to capitulate to Azerbaijan’s pressure to withdraw the film from contention. But the film is still eligible for the Best Documentary Feature Award. Here’s hoping it makes the short list.

Jordan has one nomination, for Naji Abu Nowar’s Theeb in 2015.

This was the country’s 8th submission.

Short List Predictions

The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Germany

Emilia Pérez, France

I’m Still Here, Brazil

Vermiglio, Italy

The Girl with the Needle, Denmark

Kneecap, Ireland

The Last Journey, Sweden

Santosh, UK

Flow, Latvia

Universal Language, Canada

Dahomey, Senegal

Memory Lane, Netherlands

Julie Keeps Quiet, Belgium

Nawi, Kenya

Armand, Norway

Possible

Memories of a Burning Body, Costa Rica

Drowning Dry, Lithuania

Cloud, Japan

Saturn Return, Spain

Sujo, Mexico

Grand Tour, Portugal

Abang Adik, Malaysia

My Personal Top 15

I’m Still Here, Brazil

Armand, Norway

Waves, Czechia

Universal Language, Canada

Vermiglio, Italy

The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Germany

Three Kilometres to the End of the World, Romania

Come Closer, Israel

Emilia Pérez, France

The Last Journey, Sweden

Touch, Iceland

My Late Summer, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Arzé, Lebanon

Abang Adik, Malaysia

The Glassworker, Pakistan

My Runners-up

The Girl with the Needle, Denmark

Kneecap, Ireland

Rita, Guatemala

12.12: The Day, South Korea

Cloud, Japan

Best Performances

Lead Actress

Renate Reinsve in Armand

Zoe Saldaña in Emilia Pérez (she is the lead)

Fernanda Torres in I’m Still Here

Lia Elalouf in Come Closer

Mona Zaki in Flight 404

Anja Matković in My Late Summer

Martina Scrinzi in Vermiglio

Diamand Abou Abboud in Arzé

Gresa Pallas in Waterdrop

Nisrin Erradi in Everybody Loves Touda

Lead Actor

Vojtěch Vodochodský, in Waves

Kang Ren Wu & Jack Tan in Abang Adik (both deserving)

Miklós H. Vecsei in Semmelweis

Tomasso Ragno in Vermiglio

Jose Ramon Barreto in Back to Life

Missagh Zareh in The Seed of the Sacred Fig

Jung Woo-su, 12.12: The Day

Paulius Markevicius, Drowning Dry

Putthipong “Billkin” Assaratanakul in How To Make Millions Before Grandma Dies

Daniel Ibáñez in Saturn Return 

Supporting Actress

Selena Gomez in Emilia Pérez

Trine Dyrholm in The Girl with the Needle

Crista Alfaiate in Grand Tour

Karla Sofía Gascón in Emilia Pérez

Soheila Golestani in Seed of the Sacred Fig

Carlotta Gamba in Vermiglio

Shaden Fakih in Arze

Miray Daner in Life

Ellen Dorrit Petersen in Armand

Rachel Genovese in Castillo

Francisca Lewin in In Her Place 

Supporting Actor

Palmi Kormákur in Touch

Giuseppe De Domenico in Vermiglio

Aliocha Schneider in Family Therapy

Michael Fassbender in Kneecap

Patrick Gardner in Vermiglio 

Ciprian Chiujdea in Three Kilometres to the End of the World

Ondřej Stupka in Waves

Ido Tako in Come Closer

Valeriu Andriuță in Three Kilometres to the End of the World

Goran Navojec in My Late Summer

Okudaira Daiken in Cloud

Burak Dakak in Life

STATS

Country with the most nominations / wins

France 38 noms, 12 wins (3 honorary), 69 submissions
Italy 30 noms, 14 wins (3 honorary), 68 subs
Germany 22 noms, 4 wins, 65 subs (includes East Germany)
Spain 21 noms, 4 wins, 67 subs
Japan 18 noms, 5 wins (3 honorary), 68 subs
Russia/Soviet Union 16 noms, 4 wins, 53 subs (combined)
Sweden 16 noms, 3 wins, 64 subs
Denmark 14 noms, 4 wins, 62 subs

Poland 13 noms, 1 win, 56 subs
Hungary 10 noms, 2 wins, 60 subs
Czechia (Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic) —9 noms, 3 wins,
54 subs (all combined)

Mexico, 9 nom, 1 win, 57 subs
Argentina 8 noms, 2 wins, 51 subs
Netherlands 7 noms, 3 wins, 57 subs
Canada 7 noms, 1 win, 50 subs

Most Nominations with no wins

Israel 10 noms, no wins (record)
Belgium 8 noms, no wins
Norway 6 noms, no wins
Yugoslavia, 6 noms, no wins
Greece, 5 noms, no wins

Submissions with no nominations

Portugal 41 subs, no nom, never shortlisted (record)
Egypt 37 subs, no noms, never shortlisted
Phillippines 35 subs, no noms, never shortlisted
Bulgaria, 35 subs, no noms, shortlisted once
Venezuela 32 subs no noms, shortlisted once, disqualified once
Croatia 32 subs, no noms, disqualified once
Serbia, 31 subs, no noms, shortlisted once
Thailand, 31 subs, no noms, never shortlisted
Turkey 31 subs, no noms, shortlisted once
Slovakia, 28 subs, no noms, never shortlisted
Slovenia 28 subs, no noms, disqualified once

By my count there were 23 features directed or co-directed by women, up one from last year.

Voting Rules for the 97th Oscar Awards:

1. VOTING
2. International Feature Film nominations will be determined in two rounds of voting:
3. All active and life Academy members will be invited to view the eligible submissions in the category. Those who opt in will be required to see a minimum number of submitted eligible films as defined by the current procedures. Members will vote by secret ballot in the order of their preference for not more than fifteen motion pictures. The fifteen motion pictures receiving the highest number of votes shall advance to next round of voting.
4. All active and life Academy members will be invited to view the fifteen shortlisted films in the category. A member must see all shortlisted films for the ballot to be counted. Members shall vote in the order of their preference for not more than five motion pictures. The five motion pictures receiving the highest number of votes shall become the nominations for final voting for the International Feature Film award.
5. Final voting for the International Feature Film award shall be restricted to active and life Academy members who have viewed all five nominated films.
6. The Academy statuette (Oscar) will be awarded to the film and accepted by the director on behalf of the film’s creative talents. For Academy Awards purposes, the country will be credited as the nominee. The director’s name will be listed on the statuette plaque after the country and film title.