Friday, October 15, 2021 at 10:51AM More entries announced!
INDONESIA
Indonesia will send Kamila Andini's Yuni a drama about a teenage girl who rejects a marriage proposal. But the proposals keep coming and culturally she's supposed to accept...
Wednesday, October 13, 2021 at 7:00PM by Nathaniel R
If you've missed Oscar submission announcements we've covered all of them from Croatia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Israel, Greece, Hungary, The Netherlands, Somalia, South Korea, Ecuador, Serbia, Switzerland, though Albania, Ireland, Kyrgzstan, Slovenia, Ukraine, Armenia, Canada, Peru, and on to Spain. We've reviewed nine other entries including films from Cambodia (White Building), Colombia (Memoria), Finland (Compartment No 6), Germany (I'm Your Man), Japan (Drive My Car), Morocco (Casablanca Beats), Poland (Leave No Traces), and Taiwan (The Falls). Now we have five more announcements to "consider" the highest profile new contender being France's Titane, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes. But let's take the five new options alphabetically by country after the jump...
Best International Film, Oscars (21), Titane Tuesday, October 12, 2021 at 1:00PM by Nathaniel R
Franz Rogowski at Cannes for "The Great Freedom" this summer
This morning we learned that Sebastian Meise's Great Freedom, a German language post war drama about a homosexual in prison will be Austria's submission for the Oscars this year (chart updates). The film stars Franz Rogowski who we've loved looking at ever since we first saw him in the amazing continuous shot movie Victoria (2015) and whose career picked up steam after the international acclaim for Transit (2018). 2021 has been a busy year for the German star. The romantic fantasy Undine (2020) was released in June in the US and directly afterwards he spent the next few months at film festivals promoting three new projects: Great Freedom at Cannes in July, Luzifer at Locarno in August, and the Italian film Freaks Out at Venice in early September.
Photos, some shot by the man himself (who has a fun Instagram account), some from his movies, and some lifted from MNPP (Jason is also a huge fan) are after the jump...
Monday, October 11, 2021 at 8:53PM 
FEAR
Since we last posted there have been five more countries announcing their submissions for our favourite Oscar category that doesn't include "actress" in the title. Find out about those movies after the jump.
BULGARIA
Bulgaria has opted to send a film called Fear by Ivaylo Hristov. It's about a widow on the Bulgarian/Turkish border who meets an African refugee. And yes, it's yet another 2021 film that's shot in black and white (so many this year!)...
Thursday, October 7, 2021 at 5:21PM by Nathaniel R
LET IT BE MORNING
The announcements of Oscar submissions from various countries are rolling in fast now. If you've missed previous posts we've already covered the submissions from Cambodia, Ecuador, Morocco, Poland, Serbia, Switzerland, Albania, Ireland, Kyrgzstan, Slovenia, Ukraine, Armenia, Canada, Colombia, Peru, Germany, and Spain and have reviewed three of the films. In today's huge update we have finalists lists from Chile, France, and Sweden as well as official submissions from Greece, Hungary, The Netherlands, Somalia, South Korea, and Taiwan. But let's start with Israel as we foresee complications.
ISRAEL
Each year Israel's own Oscar style prize "The Ophir" is held around this time and whichever film wins becomes the automatic submission. They've only run into trouble with this system twice in the past (once for a film that had too much English and the other time with a tie so they had to vote again for Oscar purposes). But this year might be another. Let It Be Morning, with a largely Palestinian cast from source material by a Palestinian author, was the big winner at the Ophirs so it became the Israeli submission. While the director Erin Kolirin (of The Band's Visit fame) is Israeli, the film is about Palestinians and earlier this summer, the cast refused to attend the Cannes premiere because the festival labelled the film as an Israeli film. One imagines they'll object to this film representing Israel at the Oscars, for the same reason. Potentially complicating matters further is that Palestine also submits to the Oscars...
