We have our first 10 contenders for Best Foreign Film
Saturday, August 25, 2018 at 11:08AM by Nathaniel R
Our first 10 official contenders for Best Foreign Language Film for the Oscars have been revealed. Any of the links will take you to the foreign submission charts where you can read more. They are:
- Belarus Crystal Swan
- Belgium Girl (CANNES CAMERA D'OR)
- Estonia Take it Or Leave It
- Japan Shoplifters (CANNES PALME D'OR)
- Lithuania Wonderful Losers
- Romania's "I do not care if we go down in history as barbarians"
- Slovakia The Interpreter
- Switzerland El Dorado
- Turkey The Wild Pear Tree
- UK I Am Not a Witch (BAFTA OUTSTANDING DEBUT)
RANDOM NOTES
Lithuania and Switzerland have opted for documentaries (which have only extremely rarely been nominated in this category). The longest of the titles is Turkey's entry (over 3 hours) because Nuri Bilge Ceylan can't help himself. His movies are always punishingly long.
Director Rungano Nyoni (left) and Producer Emily Morgan (right) won BAFTAs for I Am Not A Witch earlier this year.FEMALE DIRECTORS
Overseas female directors are more commonly working than they are in the US. People say otherwise online sometimes -- probably due to righteous political fire -- but they haven't been studying foreign film Oscar submissions for the past 18 Oscar seasons as we have. There are always multiple female directors represented in the 70-90 film list. Can you imagine a US committee selecting a female-directed film if they could only honor ONE film to represent everything made in the country? (I thought not. We still have a long way to go in Hollywood) So far the list is 30% female directors (Belarus, Estonia, and UK). If you're curious about this topic we shared a bunch of trivia regarding female Best Foreign Film directors a couple of years back.
RETURNING DIRECTORS
This is the fifth time Turkey has submitted their most critically beloved director but Oscar hasn't yet gone for any of his films (Ceylan's previously selected films: Distant, Three Monkeys (which made the Academy's 9 wide finalist list but was not nominated), Once Upon a Time in Anatolia , and Winter Sleep). This is the second time Romania has selected Radu Jude (previously submitted for Aferim!)
FRONTRUNNERS?
So far buzz favors Roma for Mexico, Capernaum for Lebanon, and Cold War from Poland, but none of those films are "officially" selected to compete yet by their home countries.
Reader Comments (28)
Did Roma make the eligibility/theatrical requirements in Mexico? I'm seeing conflicting information online.
I only counted 9 movies
I've my fingers crossed for my dear Portugal ... Hope our academy submits "Pedro e Inês" (AKA "The Dead Queen"), early word is strong, the cast is amazing and the source material is really good.
"Can you imagine a US committee selecting a female-directed film if they could only honor ONE film to represent everything made in the country? "
I love you so much for saying this!! Because, as a foreign view, the answer is ABSOLUTILY NOT!
I hope, some day, someone speak of this on the acceptance speech in any category of the Oscars.
Maybe a female director!!
I really hope that France choose CUSTODY. Is the best picture for me, till now, and if
SHOPLIFTERS - JAPAN
GIRL - BELGIUM
THE WILD PEAR TREE - TURKEY
and probably selected
COLD WAR - POLAND
BIRDS OF PASSAGE - COLOMBIA
THE CAKEMAKER - ISRAEL
CAPERNAUM - LEBANON
ROMA - MEXICO
THE FALL OF THE AMERICAN EMPIRE - CANADA
NEVER LOOK AWAY - GERMANY
SUNSET - HUNGARY
BURNING - SOUTH KOREA
be on the same level, we don't need the category of best picture of the year because the are already nominated on the same category.
Moreno -oops. sorry i forgot to put in Slovakia under the bullet point list
Chris -- i wouldn't worry too much about it. TECHNICALLY if you go by imdb release dates, Roma would not be eligible but this happens all the time and usually the studio or distributor or whatnot has four-walled one theater in the home country for a week to make sure they're eligible... often with little press. (kind of like the american "one week qualifier" thing).
"because Nuri Bilge Ceylan can't help himself. His movies are always punishingly long" - such a stupid comment, really.
Ceylan is a god of cinema and "The Wild Pear Tree" is awesome (it's far better than candidates from Japan, Belgium and even the Great Britain, I haven't seen the rest yet).
Why no new Oscar category for ‘Best Achievement in a Popular Foreign Film?’
I'll be rooting for I Am Not A Witch to get a nomination. Saw it at the Maine International Film Festival last month and loved it.
I'd love to see Brazil submit the horror musical folklore fantasy Good Manners, but I don't think it's that loved in its home country. At least that's what the co-director implied during the Q&A. It's a great movie and would be deserving.
When I'm at TIFF I hope to see Cold War, ROMA, Burning, Ash is Purest White, Border, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Sunset, and A Wild Pear Tree. Thinking I'll skip Capernaum until it's streaming because it doesn't sound like my kind of movie at all.
Totally agree on Nuri Bilge Ceylan. The man needs to learn to E-D-I-T.
I'm trying to fit as many of the likely submissions as possible into my TIFF schedule, but I just can't make myself sit through another 180 minute slog of his. I keep telling myself I'll catch "The Wild Pear Tree" if it's nominated... which (spoiler alert!) it won't be.
@Doug
I am Brazilian and Good Manners is a good hit here. But Brazilian filmmakers consider hits and success only movies who make 1 millions views and more. I don't know how is the box office for Good Manners but it's an appreciated movie? Yes! A lot!
We are not talking to much about Oscars this year in our country because our focus in on the general elections of October (President, Senators, Governors, etc) and the country is a mass since the impeachment of Dilma Roussef and with the right-wing candidate who should not be named considered for a lot of people to the presidency, we have a LOT of work to do, but our nominees will be between
Loving
Good Manners
Arabia
The Great Mystical Circus (Carlos Diegues)
Evan -- thanks. I am doing the same thing. but i just can't.(unless nominated)
Tom -- what do you mean? We have no criteria yet so i can't make any predictions. we don't know how many nominees? what eligibility requirements are? nothing!
Doug & Jon -- i've seen Good Manners. I thought it was really interesting but strangely ungainly (in running time and multiple acts... like, what do you want to focus on? pick!) but it did have some great scenes. It's definitely memorable.
Best I’ve seen so far are Capernaum and Burning, with Shoplifters, The Guilty, Girl, and Cold War slightly behind. Any of those six would be a worthy nominee and possible winner if Roma doesn’t run away with it all.
Capernaum and The Guilty in particular have an accessibility to them that should make them improbable crowd pleasers - and may carry them far in the Oscar race (if they all get chosen as their country’s champion).
@Nathaniel
Good to know. I haven't seeing yet.
@Duncan Dykes
I like your commentary. Except from The Guilt, all the others are on my list of movies to watch since they release in my country or I find them online. 🙊😂
Roma seems to me like Mexico finally winning. And I read online there was a secret screening in Mexico to make sure it qualifies as its submission
On Ceylan: I do think he earns the running time sometimes. I remember being mesmerized when Once Upon a Time in Anatolia ended and that effect was caused by the way he deals with time and pace.
On Good Manners: I don't mind the movie changing its focus in the middle of it because I love both parts. Maybe there are two movies in it, but it's bold!
Nuri Bilge Ceylan is one of the very best directors working today. I've seen his last 5 movies. They're all recommend, and Distant and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia are stunning masterpieces. I'm very much looking forward to seeing The Wild Pear Tree at TIFF.
Ceylan is indeed a god and by now he has a free lifetime pass from me. Wherever he wants to take me, I will go
Wild Pear Tree isn't quite as hypnotic or all-time-great as Anatolia. And there were times where I got a bit frustrated with the pacing. Not that I was bored, just not completely certain this time out the length was quite as warranted.
But by the time the movie ended I was very much certain and felt stupid to have even second guessed that. It's a beautiful, profound and deeply moving film if you meet it on its own terms
Why are no "Foreign Language Performance" male or/and Female at the Oscars? That is a wish a have since 20 Years! What are you thinking about that? Better than "Best Popular Film", or? ^^
@Patrick
Don't have because a lot of English born actors will learn other language just to work in no English films and winning that award. Will be no fare to the real no English actors.
Something that I really want is that we have eight nominees on Foreign and Documentary Features Films categories.
I know that a lot of people don't agree with that, but especially on the foreign arena, a lot of great / masterpiece movies should be nominated and they are not because five is the magical number to the academy and 😒
Jon -- i actually think that 5 helps the audiences more in terms of curiousity. I know you used to hear people talk about seeing "all the nominees" as a goal. And 5 was doable, whatever your category interest but if you have 8-10 nominees in a category it begins to feel overwhelming. My take at least. I hate that Emmy has 7-8 spots in categories now (but still can't be bothered to vary them up much from year to year, making the extra spots a bit silly if you ask me)
Goran -- i wish i could. but i can't with 3 hour movies unless they actually have 3 hours worth of material in them. I liked Distant, though. Of course Distant was under 2 hours. The way I know that people are fooling themselves when they always claim that master auteurs earn their running times is that if you look at careers, there's almost always bloat as soon as someone is declared a "master"... once they believe their own hype the running times expand (but not necessarily the material with it. This happens with so many people. I did a study of it with Scorsese here at the site and it's true of Tarantino obviously and so many others.
It's definitely true for Ceylan who used to make reasonably lengthed movies (the first five)... but the last three have all been super long. Why is that? History suggests it's because nobody says no to a director once they're considered one of the greats... including themselves. Everybody seems to get worse at self-discipline the more famous they get.
I so wish I could watch all these movies.
Are any online already??
Nathaniel, I agree with you on the lack of self-editing, but let me make an exception for Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen.
Rod - The only of them that was released is "I Am Not a Witch". It's available on DVD and Itunes (UK, at least) and maybe other platforms which I didn't check.
My own 5 cents on the nominees (including Ceylan). " Once Upon a Time in Anatolia" was indeed a magnificent film, but I can understand those who say that his films are too long. "The Wild Pear Tree" is poetic and beautiful as all Ceylan films and like always his only chance is the Special Committee.
Mark Slovakian "The Interpreter" as a dark horse. It's 2nd generation Holocaust dramedy, a road film about a son of SS, who hires a Holocaust survivor as his interpreter in the journey through Slovakia to learn about his fathers' deeds.
And a few corrections about the information in your general list. "Touch Me Not" could not have been submitted, because it's mainly in English. While "And Breath Now" can suffer from the same faith (though I'm not sure, because it's close to 50/50 and one have to count words to make sure). Dutch "Kleine IJstijd" is not on their shortlist for submission.
While i tend to agree with you, Nathaniel, that Ceylan has an issue with self editing, I think both Anatolia and Winter Light are quite strong films, certainly better than Climates (101 minutes) or Three Monkeys (109 minutes). I don't know if you've seen anything post-Distant (a search of the website suggests you haven't seen those two, at least) and I'd say you're missing out.
re:Non English categories for performers?
Yeah, I think it should happen. Honestly, I interpret a performance in a language I don't speak (aka, all but English) differently than in a language I do speak and recognize that in my own awards. Which, admittedly, is just a way to celebrate more achievements.
The thing with three-hour runtimes is that often there reaches a point where filmmakers become able to make three-hour movies without it necessarily hurting them. Ceylan can now make the films he presumably wants and get into Cannes every year and get theatrical distribution sales around the world and sell out festivals. I thought ANATOLIA was a bit too long but ambitiously so, but then I really got lulled into the groove of WINTER SLEEP. And from what I've heard, THE WILD PEAR TREE is great, too.
Nathaniel - it's cute of you to argue I'm fooling myself into admiring Ceylan based on.....I'm not following - based on what exactly? Based on my love for his early work getting somehow out of hand?
On my first viewing, I was bored shitless by Distant. Actively haated Three Monkeys (aside from the photography). Went out of my way to avoid Climates.
I was coerced into seeing Anatolia. My plan was to avoid it as well because I was convinced it would bore me.
It didn't. It's a masterpiece. And it's the first time I actually 'got' Ceylan. Winter Sleep was the second time. Only after that did I rewatch Distant - and while I liked it better on a second viewing, it still feels a bit slight to me. In fact, I wonder if it needed to run a bit longer and Ceylan needed a bigger story canvas to bring out deeper insights and resonances from that story.
Like every blanket rule, your rule about filmmakers losing discipline with esteem kinda sorta makes sense with some people (Scorsese, Tarantino). And completely not with others (Ceylan!).
Please don't try to rationalise away my love and admiration for a great artist just because you don't like long films.
Oh, come on! Movies are as long as they should be. If they have to have 7 or 8 hours (like "Satantango" of Bela Tarr or some movies of Lav Diaz) then that's totally OK.
If someone claims otherwise then he isn't a true cinema lover and should not write about the film experience (because he doesn't know what that is).
P.S. Romania did not choose "Touch Me Not" because it's an ENGLISH language movie so they could not. :)