As the first acquisition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Flee made headlines as an early success story. To anyone who attended the premiere screening, it was no surprise that the film was snapped up so quickly. Between its lovely animation and personal message, it speaks to a refugee’s journey in a heartfelt way. I shed tears at several points during the film, and based on the reactions I heard during the Q&A afterwards, we’ll be hearing much more about its emotional impact in the future.
The story begins as a conversation between two friends, one of whom (Amin) seems to be hesitating when considering marriage to his longtime boyfriend...
Denmark's latest Oscar submission, Another Round, is now available to watch on VOD. The feature stars a cadre of stupendous Danish thespians, led by Mads Mikkelsen, one of the country's biggest names internationally. From his beginnings as a supporting player in indie flicks to mainstream gigs as portentous villains, the actor made fans of many a cinephile and charmed even more unsuspecting moviegoers. To celebrate the release of his latest project, I decided to take a look at the career and life of Mikkelsen, enumerating 10 reasons why I love the actor…
In addition to the 66 titles already announced we have finalist lists for Italy, Nepal, and Serbia on the respective Oscar charts.
ELSEWHERE We have begun to hear rumors that Canada's Funny Boy which hits Netflix on December 10th is mostly in the English language so if that's true it might be disqualified from the category (this has happened to several films in the past). Films have to be less than 50% English language in their dialogue to be eligible. The only exception the Academy has made is that they've now approved "Pidgin English" ostensibly to make it easier for certain African countries to submit after Nigeria and Austria's entries, both featuring Nigerians were disqualified last year. But Pidgin English is a broad term so we don't know how lenient they'll start being given this new ruling.Trailers rarely paint the whole truth about a movie but the trailer to Funny Boy is ENTIRELY in what sounds like traditional English.
WHERE TO SEE THE MOVIES? If you want to get a jump on some of the submissions 12 of the 65 titles are streaming or will be soon. Netflix has six of them: Austria's What We Wanted, Mexico's I'm No Longer Here, Spain's The Endless Trench, Taiwan's A Sun, Turkey's Miracle in Cell No 7, and on December 10th, Canada's Funny Boy. You can also stream Chile's The Mole Agent on Hulu, Guatemala's La Llorona on Amazon, Indonesia's Impetigore is on Shudder or Roku, Lithuania's Nova Lituania on MUBI, and South Korea's Man Standing Next on Amazon, YouTube, or iTunes. Denmark's Another Round, which feels like a likely nominee or at least finalist arrives in December in both theaters and on VOD. You can follow the list as it grows at our Oscar charts or on our Letterboxd list.
Carl Theodor Dreyer is one of my favorite filmmakers. I'll never forget the first time I watched The Passion of Joan of Arc on the big screen and was transported, how experiencing Vampyr felt like witnessing a projected nightmare, the ecstasy of Ordet's ending or Gertrud's stern ruminations on love. It's to my great shame that I'm not familiar with the Danish director's early works, having mostly ignored them until now. The centennial of Dreyer's second feature, Leaves from Satan's Book, makes this a great time to start correcting these cinephilic lacunas…
Denmark is currently Oscar's favourite country in the Best International Feature category. Yes, we know they're not the "all time" favourite country, so don't @ us. But in the past 10 years (2010-2019) they've been nominated 50% of the time, with two additional finalists. Deep involvement in 70% of the Oscar conversations in a decade is a pretty great track record. How long can they keep it up? We won't know if they'll nab another nomination this season until a few months from now but Denmark just announced their finalists. On November 17th, they'll choose their submission between the following films:
Another Round by Thomas Vinterberg
A Perfectly Normal Family by Malou Reymann
Shorta by Anders Ølholm and Frederik Louis Hviid.
If Denmark wants to bet based on past success they'll go with Another Round. It just won the top prize at the London Film Festival. Plus, international star Mads Mikkelsen has headlined three Oscar-nominated films from his home country previously....
Saturday, January 30, 2021 at 10:30PM 
