International Oscars 2024

Festival Reviews

TFV Interviews Pan Nalin

by TheFilmVerdict | Dec 9, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Spotlight

“I can believe in cinema again!” The Indian director of ‘Last Film Show’ talks about making an ode to celluloid in the digital age.

TFV Interviews Ove Musting

by TheFilmVerdict | Dec 9, 2022 | Featured, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

The Estonian filmmaker talks about the unwittingly timely release of ‘Kalev’.

Profile: Lukas Dhont

by Deborah Young | Dec 9, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024

The celebrated Belgian director is once again representing his country in the Oscar race.

A Ballad

by Stephen Dalton | Dec 9, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Sarajevo

Bosnian director Aida Begic gives a 21st century feminist remix to a 19th century folk story in her baggy but formally ambitious ‘A Ballad’, the Oscar entry from Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Alma Viva

by Boyd van Hoeij | Dec 9, 2022 | CANNES 2022, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

Cristèle Alves Meira’s feature debut is an uneven work that combines anthropological and documentary details with more supernatural elements.

Eami

by Patricia Boero | Dec 9, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Rotterdam

The plight of the indigenous Ayoreo, the last tribe to avoid contact and reclaim its territories in the Paraguayan Chaco Forest, is painstakingly and poetically rendered in this drama premiering at Rotterdam.

CINE VERDICT: Eami

by Patricia Boero | Dec 9, 2022 | Featured, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

La difícil situación de los indígenas ayoreo, la última tribu en evitar el contacto y reclamar sus territorios en la selva del Chaco paraguayo, se plasma de forma minuciosa y poética en este drama que se estrenó en Rotterdam y es candidata al Oscar Internacional 2023 por Paraguay.

The Employer and the Employee

by Patricia Boero | Dec 9, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, San Sebastian

A subtle character study successfully explores guilt, filial duty and labor relations between a young farmhand and his boss, set among the vast soybean plantations along the Uruguay Brazil border.

CINE VERDICT: El empleado y el patrón

by Patricia Boero | Dec 9, 2022 | Featured, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

Un sutil estudio de personajes que explora con éxito el sentimiento de culpa, el deber filial, y las relaciones laborales entre un joven peón y su patrón, ambientado en las vastas plantaciones de soja a lo largo de la frontera entre Uruguay y Brasil.

CINE VERDICT: Argentina, 1985

by Boyd van Hoeij | Dec 8, 2022 | Featured, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

El drama de Santiago Mitre sobre el Juicio a las Juntas hace justicia a este importante hito de la historia argentina.

TFV Interviews Jerzy Skolimowski

by TheFilmVerdict | Dec 8, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Spotlight

The Polish filmmaker discusses his bond with the animal star(s) of ‘EO’.

Argentina, 1985

by Boyd van Hoeij | Dec 8, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024

Santiago Mitre’s drama about the Trial of the Juntas does this important milestone in Argentina’s history justice.

CINE VERDICT: Alcarràs

by Boyd van Hoeij | Dec 8, 2022 | Cine Verdict, Featured, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

El segundo largometraje de Carla Simón es una mirada novelesca pero poco sentimental sobre una familia rural catalana.

Alcarràs

by Boyd van Hoeij | Dec 8, 2022 | Berlin, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

Carla Simón’s second feature is a novelistic yet unsentimental look at a rural Catalan family.

Profile: Alice Diop

by Deborah Young | Dec 8, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Spotlight

French director and documentarian Alice Diop makes a bright debut in fiction filmmaking with her complexly layered, multi-prize-winning ‘Saint Omer’, exploring the dark side of motherhood.

A Piece of Sky

by Jordan Mintzer | Dec 7, 2022 | Berlin, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

A beautifully shot, rigidly ice-cold story of love, disease and crushed dreams that will play best with festival crowds and highly selective art houses.

Holy Spider

by Deborah Young | Dec 7, 2022 | CANNES 2022, Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Spotlight

Ali Abbasi’s Iranian-set noir, based on a real serial killer of prostitutes, explores the social and religious culture that is often used as an excuse for violence against women.

Profile: Laura Mora

by Lucy Virgen | Dec 7, 2022 | Cine Verdict, Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Interviews & Profiles

Laura Mora became the first Colombian director to win the Golden Shell at San Sebastian for her chaotic, dreamlike epic, ‘The Kings of the World.’ It is now Colombia’s Oscar hopeful.

Winners

by Stephen Dalton | Dec 7, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Spotlight

The UK’s official Oscar submission is a sweetly knowing homage to classic cinema, especially the modern masters of Iran.

Last Film Show

by Clarence Tsui | Dec 7, 2022 | Featured, Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Tribeca, Valladolid

Oscars voters have always had a soft spot for movies about movies – and Last Film Show should very much fit their bill as they survey the candidates for the Best International Film Academy Award. India’s submission for the category is a lushly-lensed feature aimed...

World War III

by Deborah Young | Dec 7, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, VENICE 2022

A manual day laborer is selected to play Hitler in a film, but this stroke of “luck” leads to terrible tragedies on the film set in Houman Seyedi’s expertly crafted, realistic/metaphoric tale about authoritarian society.

Nostalgia

by Deborah Young | Dec 7, 2022 | CANNES 2022, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

Mario Martone directs an emotional terror tour through Baroque, Camorra-ridden Naples, where actor Pierfrancesco Favino has a rendezvous with destiny.

TFV Interviews He Shuming

by TheFilmVerdict | Dec 6, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024

The Singaporean director recounts his full immersion in the Oscar promotion process and looks ahead to remakes.

Domingo and the Mist

by Patricia Boero | Dec 6, 2022 | CANNES 2022, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

In Costa Rica’s Oscar entry, magic realism meets environmental degradation in the austere tale of a widower’s resistance against ruthless developers.

War Sailor

by Jordan Mintzer | Dec 6, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024

An intriguing and seldom-told WWII story gets the standardized treatment in this epic-scale Norwegian drama.

Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths

by Deborah Young | Dec 5, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, VENICE 2022

Mexican master Alejandro G. Iñárritu (‘Birdman’, ‘The Revenant’) takes time off for a very personal project with autobiographical and cinematic undertones.

The Box

by Jay Weissberg | Dec 4, 2022 | International Oscars 2024

Léalo en español The box in the title that young Mexican teen Hatzin (newcomer Hatzin Navarrete) picks up containing his father’s remains may look like a simple mini-casket, but the emotional baggage that goes with it is far weightier than what’s inside. In the third...

Kalev

by Stephen Dalton | Dec 2, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Spotlight

Estonia’s official Oscar submission ‘Kalev’ finds timely modern echoes in a true sporting saga that took place during the dying days of Russian occupation.

CINE VERDICT: Blanquita

by Patricia Boero | Dec 2, 2022 | Cine Verdict, Featured, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

Un complejo thriller basado en un escándalo verdadero de abusos sexuales que involucra a políticos chilenos, sacerdotes, empresarios y niños desamparados, donde nadie es totalmente inocente o culpable.

Ajoomma

by Kevin Jagernauth | Nov 30, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, Spotlight

He Shuming’s feature debut ‘Ajoomma’, Singapore’s Oscar hopeful, is an amusing look at life’s second act with a warm, winning performance by Hong Huifang.

Victim

by Stephen Dalton | Nov 25, 2022 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024

Competing forms of victimhood expose a rotten racist society in Slovak director Michal Blaško’s prize-winning Oscars submission ‘Victim’.

Behind The Haystacks

by Stephen Dalton | Nov 11, 2022 | Featured, Festivals, International Oscars 2024, THESSALONIKI 2022

Writer-director Asimina Proedrou’s grimly compelling debut feature ‘Behind The Haystacks’ is a contemporary Greek tragedy about family conflicts and border tensions.

Narcosis

by Stephen Dalton | Nov 9, 2022 | Featured, Festivals, International Oscars 2024, THESSALONIKI 2022

A grieving family struggle to move beyond tragedy in Martijn de Jong’s poetically filmed debut feature ‘ Narcosis’, the official Dutch submission to the Oscars.

Aurora’s Sunrise

by Carmen Gray | Nov 9, 2022 | Festivals, IDFA, IDFA 2022, International Oscars 2024

A powerful, accessible blend of animation and archive that bears witness to the Armenian genocide through the eyes of survivor and Hollywood silent star Aurora Mardiganian.

The Visitor

by Patricia Boero | Oct 13, 2022 | Antalya, Featured, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

Martin Boulocq’s timely drama exposes a complex web of family, class, and economic codependency in modern Bolivia, where evangelical churches recruit and exploit indigenous communities.

Society of the Snow

by Deborah Young | Sep 9, 2023 | Featured, Festivals, International Oscars 2024

‘Society of the Snow’, the edge-of-seat disaster movie that closes the 80th Venice Film Festival, directed by J.A. Bayona of ‘The Impossible’ fame, recreates the 1972 air crash of a Uruguayan flight in the Andes in great but respectful detail.

I Am Captain

by Deborah Young | Sep 6, 2023 | Festivals, International Oscars 2024, VENICE 2023

Director Matteo Garrone steps back from the edginess of stylized crime dramas and horror fantasies to recount the no less cruel and shocking journey made by two Senegalese teens to Europe in ‘I Am Captain’ (‘Io Capitano’).

“SWEET DREAMS” CHOSEN TO REPRESENT THE NETHERLANDS

by TheFilmVerdict | Sep 6, 2023 | International Oscars 2024, FestMarket Clips

Ena Sendijarevi’s “SWEET DREAMS” has been chosen as The Netherlands’ official entry for the International Feature Film award at the 2024 Academy Awards. The film world-premiered at Locarno Film Festival, where, actress Renée Soutendijk won a Best Performance Leopard...

“The Teacher’s Lounge” selected as Germany submission for Best International Film Oscar®

by TheFilmVerdict | Aug 24, 2023 | FestMarket Clips, International Oscars 2024

The Teacher’s Lounge by Ilker Çatak (if... Productions Film) will enter the race for Germany to the 96th Oscars® in the “Best International Feature Film”category. The choice was decided by an independent nine member jury who were appointed by various associations...

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