Albania, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Slovenia, and Ukraine choose their Oscar submissions

by Nathaniel R

We have five more Oscar submissions for the Best International Feature Oscar to share, all from countries that have never been nominated. With 13 official contenders we're probably around 15% there -- we don't even have enough "official" contenders for a full finalist list (of 15) yet...

ALBANIA is going with Jonid Jorgji's road trip comedy Three Lions Heading to Venice about filmmakers headed to the festival who meet adult movie actresses on the way, derailing their plans...

IRELAND has chosen Seán Breathnach's second feature Shelter (Irish title Foscadh) as their Oscar submission.  We don't know if he's any relation to Paddy Breathnach, who Ireland sent for the drag drama Viva (which made the Oscar finals) as information is scarce. Shelter is about a loner who inherits land from his parents when they pass away which brings all sort of drama. The film stars Dónall Ó Héalai who was also the headliner of Monster, Ireland's submission last season. Ireland has yet to be nominated for the Oscar.

KYRGYZSTAN will be sending Artykpai Suyundukov's Shambala.It's about a seven year old boy living in the mountains who is fascinated by the folklore tales of his grandfather though the fantasy conflicts with his harsh reality. 

SLOVENIA will send Sanremo, which appears to be an alzheimer's drama. At the very least it's about "fragmented memories". It's the fourth feature from director Miroslav Mandic. The film stars Sandi Pavlin and three actresses you've seen before if you've been watching Slovenian submissions over the year: Silva Cusin (9:06), Doroteja Nadrah (History of Love) and Barbara Cerar (Landscape No 2). Slovenia has yet to be nominated for the Oscar though one film from a Slovenian director, The Ninth Circle (1960), was nominated back when Slovenia was part of Yugoslavia.

 

UKRAINE will be sending Natalya Vorozhbit's directorial debut Bad Roads, based on her own play of interconnected stories. She has previously written plays, screenplays and one popular TV series in the Ukraine. Bad Roads won 5 Golden Dziga's in Ukraine's national film awards quite recently. It did not however win the Best Film prize which went to the Ukrainiian Oscar submission from last season, Atlantis; Blame different timetables for eligibility for these collisions.

In other news a few dozen countries are now reviewing their choices with a lot of those announcements slated for the first two weeks of October. Colombia was supposed to announce their choice a full week ago now but still haven't. Their highest-profile finalist is, oddly enough, Memoria starring Scottish-British alien goddess Tilda Swinton and directed by Thailand's most famous auteur Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul. The film takes place in Colombia and is partially in Spanish and some department heads and  funding are Colombian so perhaps it will qualify though we don't necessarily expect it to be chosen as its more international than Colombian.

You can see the submission charts and predictions at TFE and follow along on Letterboxd here if you'd like.