In Contention

Tag: Son of Babylon

  • Predicting the foreign-language Oscar shortlist

    Tomorrow, we get the last of the Academy’s crucial pre-nomination shortlists, as the list of 65 entries for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar is slashed to just nine titles, from which the eventual nominees will be announced in a week’s time. Predicting these nine is a vague and mostly thankless task, but I am nothing if not vague and thankless, so let’s give it a go.

    Remember, here’s the system as it currently stands: six of the nine titles on the shortlist are voted in by the general committee of volunteer voters in the category, based on the scores given at each film’s official Academy screening. The remaining three are selected by a hand-picked executive committee, with the specific intention of “saving” significant and/or challenging titles that didn’t win the approval of the larger, more conservative body of voters.

    This curious system was set up two years ago, following the uproar that greeted the exclusion of critically beloved Palme d’Or winner “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” in the 2007 race.

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  • Foreign Oscar update

    I neglected to mention this over a busy weekend, but the deadline for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar submissions passed on Friday. That doesn’t necessarily mean we have all the contenders set in stone, however — we’re still waiting on the official list from the Academy, which always features a couple of latecomers and a switched selection or two.

    Still, to all intents and purposes, the eventual Oscar shortlist is set to come from the 62 titles entered thus far. (Check out our updated list here.) The most notable submission among the last-minute stragglers is Argentina’s “Carancho,” a romantic legal thriller from director Pablo Trapero — whose previous feature, the strong female proson drama “Lion’s Den,” was the country’s unsuccessful Oscar submission in 2008.

    The film stars Ricardo Darin, a familiar face to that voting branch; the Argentine superstar has headlined five of the country’s last nine entries, including reigning Oscar champ “The Secret in Their Eyes.” The film played in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, where it was rather well-received. I’ll be catching up with it at the London fest this month.

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  • 9/3 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Joe Morgenstern writes a love letter to Carey Mulligan.  It’s still all happening. [Wall Street Journal]

    • Jennifer Lawrence’s buzz wave makes its way across the pond. [The Guardian]

    • The foreign film submissions are already off to the races, and now the Netherlands (“Tirza”) declares. [Variety]

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  • First foreign Oscar submissions

    I was waiting for news of these to begin trickling in… in my memory, the flood of official submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar usually begins earlier than August. Anyway, we’re there, so expect a lot more of these updates between now and October 1, the Academy’s formal (if not entirely inflexible) deadline for participating countries to enter their films.

    The first three confirmed entries come from Taiwan, Romania and Iraq — the latter two countries awaiting their first nominations in the category, while Taiwan seeks to return to the race for the first time since its sole win, with “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” a decade ago.

    The most high-profile of the three is Romania’s pick: Florin Serban’s debut feature “If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle,” was one of the few critically embraced Competition titles at February’s Berlin Film Festival, where it scooped the runner-up Silver Bear prize. As is my wont at festivals, it seems, I missed it both at Berlin and at Edinburgh, though I’ve heard glowing reports from colleagues of the film, a character study of a teenager, on the brink of release from a detention center, whose rehabilitation is disrupted when his neglectful mother re-enters his life.

    (More, including trailers for all three films, after the jump.)

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