A look into this year’s Oscar sub­mis­sions from around the globe

From France, an upset of sorts: the Cen­tre Nation­al du Ciné­ma, the French Min­istry of Culture’s divi­sion ded­i­cat­ed to mov­ing pic­ture enter­tain­ment, announced this morn­ing that they had arrived a deci­sion for their sub­mis­sion to the Acad­e­my Awards’ new­ly-renamed Best Inter­na­tion­al Fea­ture Film cat­e­go­ry. While many had pre­sumed Céline Sciamma’s rav­ish­ing les­bian romance Por­trait of a Lady on Fire as the odds-on favorite, the CNC bucked the prog­nos­ti­ca­tors and went instead of Ladj Ly’s pow­der-keg police film Les Mis­érables.

We can only spec­u­late about the rea­sons for this unlike­ly choice — smart mon­ey says that dis­trib­u­tor Amazon’s recent vis­it to argue their case may have had some­thing to do with it, though one colleague’s notion that they’re bank­ing on con­fu­sion may not be far off — but what’s clear is that this year’s race has already grown messy and unpredictable.

While many nations have yet to ren­der a choice for this year’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive at the Oscars, some favorites have emerged even at this ear­ly junc­ture. Both Spain’s Pain and Glo­ry and South Korea’s Par­a­site arrive on the scene with glow­ing notices, gold­en hard­ware from Cannes, and State­side dis­trib­u­tors will­ing to throw some mon­ey at their pro­mo­tion­al cam­paigns. (Sony Pic­tures Clas­sics claimed Pedro Almodóvar’s lat­est, while Neon snatched up Bong Joon-ho’s new film.)

Oth­ers have made rather dar­ing selec­tions, less like­ly to make the cut for nom­i­na­tion but com­mend­able all the same in trum­pet­ing the finest out­put a coun­try has to offer. This cov­ers the Czech Republic’s The Paint­ed Bird and Colombia’s Monos, the for­mer too over­whelm­ing­ly mis­er­able to win over the vot­ing bloc, and the lat­ter too for­mal­ly experimental.

Though Japan­ese sub­mis­sion Weath­er­ing With You (anoth­er fan­tas­ti­cal tale of young love from emerg­ing ani­mé mas­ter Mako­to Shinkai) goes to some strange places, its beau­ti­ful ani­ma­tion, serene dis­po­si­tion, and envi­ron­men­tal­ist mes­sag­ing could earn some of the same favor pre­vi­ous­ly enjoyed by Stu­dio Ghi­b­li pro­duc­tions. And that still leaves Elia Suleiman’s satire It Must Be Heav­en, which has the strengths of being fun­ny, top­i­cal, and accessible.

With major play­ers still yet to weigh in — one hopes that France refrained from going with the Cannes-win­ning Atlantics so that Sene­gal could sub­mit the film them­selves, and who knows what Chi­na will end up doing — the race con­tin­ues to take shape. What’s clear at present, how­ev­er, is that many more than five wor­thy films will have to elbow one anoth­er out of the way for a seat at the Oscar table this year.