Oscar submission deadline has passed for International Feature
Tuesday, December 8, 2020 at 1:22PM 
Just a heads up that we forgot to mention. The deadline for countries to submit to the Oscars for Best International Feature Film passed on December 1st (the deadline is usually October 1st but they had two extra months this year due to COVID-19). All told 89 submissions have been announced (all accounted for on our Oscar charts) so we probably won't have a record breaking amount of titles. That said, 89 is a fluid number. The final "official" list generally includes a title or two that hadn't been announced previously and generally one or two of the ones that were announced are absent for vague reasons. All in all the list is made up of 33% debut filmmakers and 34% female directors so it's a "fresh voices" year. Only eight countries sent filmmakers who've already been nominated or who've made the finals. I'm on pins and needles to dive deeper into stats as I suspect the Academy will announce the full list very soon.
While we wait for the Official List we'll be sprucing up the other Oscar charts :) which we know need updates.
UPDATE: And here's the Golden Globes list of international hopefuls. Historically they have a different list than Oscar and also allow for more than one movie per country.
Reader Comments (13)
In your opinion, what nationality makes the best lover?
If we already have 89 submissions, then it's highly likely that we will have a new record. There's sure to be some additional films that haven't been announced. We don't have UK, Australia or New Zealand yet, among others.
Oh I'm pretty sure we'll have a new record. In addition to the 89 countries that have announced, one has announced a shortlist (Nepal), one has confirmed they sent a film without announcing the title (Cambodia) and three others that frequently send films without making a formal announcement (Australia, Mongolia and the UK).
There's also close to a dozen small countries that have eligible films....expect three or four of them to be on the list, possibly including "Gold Coast Lounge" (Ghana), "90 Minutes" (Honduras), "Haifa Street" (Iraq), "The Long Walk" (Laos), "The Last Visit" (Saudi Arabia), "Nafi's Father" (Senegal) and "Kemi" (Uganda).
We should find out later this week!
I know it's totally unamerican but I had a russian lover and he was a great kisser.
Peggy Sue -- i wish i'd been a big enough whore to have an opinion on that ;)
Dzong 2-- it would be exciting to have a record number this year but in my recollection (perhaps faulty) the numbere doesn't leap by a whole lot from unofficial to official... but i guess we only need 4 more titles and for nobody to be disqualified or drop out to just barely break the record.
Nathaniel, just finished watching Israel's "Asia" here: https://jxj2020.eventive.org/films
It was ok (though very usual storyline), but unless they're really gaga on Shira Haas, I don't see it getting nominated...
The best one yet is Tunisia's "Man who sold his skin" and keeping my fingers crossed, that they won't disqualify it, as it was at least half in English language.
Usually with great entries - Germany, Poland and Sweden - won't get near to the noms this year. My faves so far out of 17 that I've managed to see are Tunis, Denmark, Iran, Belarus, Latvia and Russia,
I've been racking my brain, but I can't come up with a possible contender for Australia that would have the required amount of non-English. So there is a decent chance we won't submit this year.
Travis -- yeah, most countries miss a year here and there which is why i'm still doubtful we'll break the record this year (though we might)
Globes list is out: https://www.goldenglobes.com/articles/foreign-language-film-submissions-78th-golden-globe-awards
À nous la liberté, I think, is the first foreign film to be nominated for anything. In this case, Art Direction 1930/31 or 1931/32. In a hurry to say this, didn’t check to see whether you have it. If you do, dismiss. Or if you don’t. I guess film in a foreign language. Though maybe they don’t talk at all. Just check the whole thing out, if you may. I always regret my comments ergo the wishy-washiness.
Travis,
I don't think Australia will miss out....I remember in 2017, they sent an Italian movie that nobody had every heard of....
This year, I assumed they would send "A Lion Returns"? No? I also notice there's an Australian horror film called "Alice" on the Golden Globes list, though I have no idea what language it's in.
Vietnam just announced "Dreamy eyes"... the 90th entry...
Just realized, that Armenian entry this year - "Songs of Solomon" was produced by Nick Vallelonga, the same guy, who was one of the producers and writers of "Green Book"... Interesting how this little fact affected my prediction rating of the film's chances :)