"Sun Children" and Iran's Oscar History

by Nathaniel R

Iran is sending their favourite filmmaking son to the Oscars again. Sixty-one year old prolific filmmaker Majid Majidi brought Iran the first of their three Oscar nominations with his fifth film Children of Heaven (1998); they've submitted him almost every time he's made a feature since. This year his latest film Sun Children, which you'll recall won the Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor at Venice this year, about poverty stricken chilldren trying to support their families, will compete for the coveted Best International Feature Film Oscar prize. 

After the jump key Iranian submissions over the years and Oscar trivia...

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International Contenders: Guatemala, Bulgaria, Slovakia

Since the last round up three more countries have announced Oscar submissions bringing the total of competing films to 37.

Guatemala's La Llorona, from the director of Ixcanul

• BULGARIA - The Father
• GUATEMALA - La Llorona
• SLOVAKIA - The Auschwitz Report

A few trivia notes regarding these latest submissions. First, Maria Bakalova who is currently enjoying an instant critical/populist splash as the co-star of Borat Subsequent MovieFilm is in the ensemble of Bulgaria's dramedic submission The Father. That film is not to be confused with the English-language Anthony Hopkins Oscar hopeful The Father or the Serbian film Father (which we loved at CIFF this fall). Too many movies named Father!

Meanwhile, Guatemala has submitted the newish filmmaker Jayro Bustamante again, who made a festival splash with his debut Ixcanul (2015). His new film is La Llorona (2020)... yes, another film with a title that could easily get it confused with other contemporary offerings like Curse of La Llorona (2019) or Legend of La Llorona (2020). More details on the Oscar charts and also a visual overview of the whole field at Letterboxd

International Contenders: Costa Rica, Greece, Malaysia, etc

Since the last "roundup" updated we've had 8 more countries join the next Oscar race for Best International Feature Film bringing the total list to 34 (the list usually reaches around 90 though we suspect less this year due to COVID-19). They are...

• COSTA RICA - Land of Ashes
• GREECE - Apples
• MALAYSIA - Roh/Soul
• THE NETHERLANDS - Bulado (previously featured)
• PERU - Song Without a Name
• SPAIN - The Endless Trench (finalists previously discussed) 
• SWEDEN - Charter (previously featured)
• VENEZUELA - Once Upon a Time in Venezuela  

You can read more about the films at those Oscar chart links. So far there is a very noticeable lack of famous auteurs with a lot of debut films in the mix so who knows what Oscar might select!

What will be Portugal's choice?

by Cláudio Alves

Just this weekend, I was singing the praises of Pedro Costa's Vitalina Varela. Lo and behold, the shadowy chamber drama is one of four finalists for Portugal's Oscar submission. A jury of the Portuguese Film Academy, made up of directors Gonçalo Galvão Teles, Lauro António and Monique Rutler, actors Isabel Abreu and Welket Bungué, and cinematographer Miguel Sales Lopes, has selected their finalists from a list of 33 eligible features. The quartet of lucky films are…

 

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International Contender: Canada, Germany, Japan, and more...

Since the last posting of this kind we've had six new submissions announced for Oscar's International Feature Film race, bringing the total to 25 thus far. We're tracking both here on the Oscar charts and at letterboxd. (We usually end up around 90 titles but we suspect there will be fewer titles this year due to the pandemic and the resulting cinema chaos.)

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