Siz­ing up this year’s sub­mis­sions for the Best Inter­na­tion­al Fea­ture Oscar

After the pan­dem­ic-forced alter­ation to 2020’s eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria, allow­ing films released in Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary of this year to be con­sid­ered for nom­i­na­tions, the Acad­e­my Awards have rein­tro­duced their usu­al time­line, with 31 Decem­ber once again mark­ing the cut­off point. Which means that one race in par­tic­u­lar – per­haps the most fas­ci­nat­ing and hard-to-pre­dict of all – is already in full swing.

Nine­ty-three coun­tries sub­mit­ted an entry for the Best Inter­na­tion­al Fea­ture Film prize before last week’s dead­line, giv­ing us the full array of pos­si­bil­i­ties for the short­list to be announced on 21 Decem­ber. With the wide array of films in com­pe­ti­tion, some of which haven’t received much play­time in the UK or US, any prog­nos­ti­ca­tion involves a heavy quo­tient of sooth­say­ing and guess­work. All the same, word-of-mouth buzz sug­gests a hand­ful of safe bets and poten­tial spoilers.

As stu­dents of Oscar know full well, films with a promi­nent fes­ti­val berth and State­side dis­tri­b­u­tion tend to have an advan­tage in get­ting their name out there, so that’s the place to start. Per­haps the most excit­ing prospect of all is Palme d’Or win­ner Titane crash­ing the par­ty, that back­ing from NEON (the dis­trib­u­tor that ush­ered Par­a­site to an Inter­na­tion­al Fea­ture win two years ago) could over­come the bizarro-fac­tor which might ward off those with­out a taste for the out­ré. In this instance, the nom­i­na­tion is pret­ty much the win, a sim­i­lar deal as the pleas­ant-sur­prise Dog­tooth nom­i­na­tion back in 2010.

NEON has a lot of irons in the fire, rais­ing the ques­tion of whether they’ll con­cen­trate their efforts on one con­tender at the expense of the oth­ers. Their acqui­si­tion Memo­ria, a Thai direc­tor​’s film star­ring a British actor with some sec­tions in the Eng­lish lan­guage, still man­aged to qual­i­fy as the sub­mis­sion for Colom­bia, the coun­try in which it’s set. They’ve also got Norway’s crowd-favorite The Worst Per­son in the World, as well as Denmark’s ani­mat­ed refugee pic­ture Flee, both of which have the pub­lic-fac­ing pro­file required to make the cut.

The stream­ing giants have each brought a big name to the table; Net­flix is rep­ping Pao­lo Sor­renti­no and his Italy-select­ed The Hand of God, the sort of artist-in-repose mem­oir piece vot­ers intu­itive­ly under­stand. Ama­zon has reg­u­lar Oscar favorite Asghar Farha­di in their cor­ner, Iran’s sub­mis­sion of A Hero look­ing like it could return the film­mak­er to the big time after 2018’s Every­body Knows fiz­zled. (Anoth­er A‑list auteur, Pedro Almod­ó­var, won’t be on the scene this year. Spain opt­ed to go with Fer­nan­do Leon de Aranoa’s The Good Boss over his new film Par­al­lel Moth­ers, a move that crit­ic Guy Lodge iden­ti­fied as a repeat of the country’s 2002 snub of Talk to Her in favor of Mon­days in the Sun, anoth­er Ara­noa production.)

Oth­er odds and ends with a decent shot include I’m Your Man (a well-liked Ger­man sci-fi project with star Dan Stevens behind it, though dis­trib­u­tor Bleeck­er Street has yet to crack the cat­e­go­ry), Com­part­ment No 6 (a prop­er­ty of Oscar reg­u­lar Sony Pic­ture Clas­sics, albeit with­out much pro­mo­tion for the Finnish train trip in the States), Lamb (an A24 release that may be too deep in the Ice­landic genre wilds for the Acad­e­my), and Dri­ve My Car (a tri­umph from Japan’s Ryusuke Ham­aguchi, pos­si­bly ham­strung by its lengthy run time.) In a per­fect world, there would be room in this cat­e­go­ry for Romania’s mag­nif­i­cent, obscene Bad Luck Bang­ing or Loony Porn, but my awards-sea­son crys­tal ball hints that all the unsim­u­lat­ed oral sex may prove a bit much for the Academy.

With a spot or two sure­ly to wind up with an under-the-radar sub­mis­sion not list­ed above, it’s shap­ing up to be an excit­ing year for those with an inter­est in cin­e­ma from all around the globe. And as for those films in the mix not cur­rent­ly avail­able to watch out­side their home coun­try, here’s hop­ing that changes and soon.