by Nathaniel R
THE PEASANTS
Do you remember that painted animation film Loving Vincent (2017)? It was billed as the world's first fully painted feature film and it went on to an Oscar nomination in the Best Animated Feature category (eventually losing to Pixar's Coco). The married filmmaking team behind that picture have done it again with The Peasants, which is an adaptation of a novel about a peasant girl who causes a scandal by marrying a rich older man. Only three animated films have ever been nominated for Best International Feature Film -- Waltz With Bashir, Flee, and The Missing Picture (sort of) -- and interestingly enough all three of them can be classified as documentaries in addition to being animated. The same isn't true of The Peasants but Poland is submitting this one for the Oscar race...
If it gets distribution in time it could even be up for two categories with Best Animated Feature also in the mix.
Poland has had a good run at the Oscars these past nine years with four nominations (Ida, Cold War, Corpus Christi, and EO) and their first international win (Ida). If The Peasants is nominated they'll have scored nominations in a full 50% of the races within a 10 year span.
TOTEM
Two more submissions just announced!
As expected Mexico will submit Lila Avilés' Totem, the story of a seven year old girl at her grandfather's birthday party. This is only the director's second feature but the first, The Chambermaid (2018), won major critical acclaim and the Ariel Award at home in Mexico for Best First Work. It had the misfortune of being a Mexican film about a maid the same year that Roma arrived so it lost the Ariel at home but it did become the Mexican submission for the Oscars the following year (due to different calendars of eligibility).
A LIGHT NEVER GOES OUT
Finally, new to the list is the Hong Kong submission A Light Never Goes Out about a widow (Sylvia Chang) who continues her husband's dream of making neon signs. This is a feature debut from a filmmaker named Anastasia Tsang.