The 85 films make up the smallest field in the category in nine years. Last year saw 88 qualifying films, after the total number of eligible films had topped 90 in five of the previous six years. The record was 93, set in 2000.

In late September, all prospective voters in the category received emails inviting them to vote in the international category and telling them that those who opted in would receive emails with their assigned viewing on Friday, Nov. 1. But those emails came a week early, going to prospective voters on Friday afternoon, Oct. 25, and separating the members into seven separate groups.

Each group was given a list of 12 or 13 films to view, either in the Academy’s members-only screening platform devoted to the category or in theaters. Voters must see every film in the group for their vote to count, but they are also encouraged to see as many films as they want outside their group.

Films were not separated randomly into the groups but were chosen to create a mixture of regions, genres and running times. Group 1, for instance, is the only group with 13 entries and contains five films from Europe (Albania, Estonia, Norway, Italy and Switzerland), three from South and Central America (Bolivia, Paraguay and Costa Rica), one from Africa (Algeria), three from Asia (Armenia, Cambodia and Malaysia) and one from the Middle East (Iraq).

The list of films that were assigned to voters is not necessarily the same as the final list of qualifying films, which the Academy will release at a later date. Occasionally, an assigned film will later be determined to be ineligible under the category’s rules, though in most cases there is no difference between the list of assigned films and the final list.

Four films that were publicized as being their country’s submissions are missing from the list of assigned films. Three of those were documentaries: China’s “The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru,” Jordan’s “My Sweet Land” and Uruguay’s “The Door Is There.” Haiti’s “Kidnapping Inc.” was the fourth film announced as its country’s submission but that did not end up on any assignment lists.

First-round voting will take place from Dec. 9-13, with a shortlist of 15 films announced on Dec. 17. A second round of voting will narrow the 15 down to the final five nominees.

All of the eligible films will be placed in the Academy Screening Room devoted to the category, with new additions made every Friday. At the time the group assignments were made, 41 of the 85 titles were available in the screening room, though it did not contain such high-profile films as France’s “Emilia Perez,” Brazil’s “I’m Still Here,” Germany’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Italy’s “Vermiglio,” Mexico’s “Sujo,” Norway’s “Armand,” Portugal’s “Grand Tour,” Senegal’s “Dahomey” and the United Kingdom’s “Santosh.”

The highest-profile films that are available for voters to stream include Austria’s “The Devil’s Bath,” Belgium’s “Julie Keeps Quiet,” Bosnia and Herzegovina’s “My Late Summer,” Cambodia’s “Meeting With Pol Pot,” Canada’s “Universal Language,” Denmark’s “The Girl With the Needle,” Iceland’s “Touch,” Ireland’s “Kneecap,” Japan’s “Cloud,” Morocco’s “Everybody Loves Touda,” Latvia’s animated “Flow” and Palestine’s “From Ground Zero,” which is made up of 22 short films by directors who live in Gaza.

The available films are spread unevenly among the seven groups. Voters in Group 6, for example, only have two films available to them in the screening room, while voters in Group 3 and 4 have eight.

This year’s international race has fewer obvious favorites than in other recent years. Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez” is the highest-profile entry and the default frontrunner, followed by “I’m Still Here” from director Walter Salles and “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” from Mohammad Rasoulof.  

TheWrap has a full list of the qualifying films here, with descriptions of every film and links to trailers when available.

Here is the list of films that have been assigned to voters in the Best International Feature Film category:

• Albania: “Waterdrop,” Robert Budina              
• Algeria: “Algiers,” Chakib Taleb-Bendiab
• Argentina: “Kill the Jockey,” Luis Ortega
• Armenia: “Yasha and Leonid Brezhnev,” Edgar Baghdasaryan
• Austria: “The Devil’s Bath,” Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala               
• Bangladesh: “The Wrestler,” Iqbal Hossain Chowdhury
• Belgium: “Julie Keeps Quiet,” Leonardo Van Dijl
• Bolivia: “Own Hand,” Rodrigo Gory Patino
• Bosnia and Herzegovina: “My Late Summer,” Danis Tanovic
• Brazil: “I’m Still Here,” Walter Salles
• Bulgaria: “Triumph,” Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov             
• Cambodia: “Meeting With Pol Pot,” Rithy Panh
• Cameroon: “Kismet,” Ngang Romanus         
• Canada: “Universal Language,” Matthew Rankin
• Chile: “In Her Place,” Maite Alberdi
• Colombia: “La Suprema,” Felipe Holguin Caro
• Costa Rica: “Memories of a Burning Body,” Antonella Sudasassi
• Croatia: “Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day,” Ivona Juka
• Czech Republic: “Waves,” Jiri Madl 
• Denmark: “The Girl with the Needle,” Magnus von Horn
• Dominican Republic: “Aire: Just Breathe,” Letitia Tonos
• Ecuador: “Behind the Mist,” Sebastian Cordero
• Egypt: “Flight 404,” Hani Khalifa         
• Estonia: “8 Views of Lake Biwa,” Marko Raat             
• Finland: “Family Time,” Tia Kouvo
• France: “Emilia Perez,” Jacques Audiard
• Georgia: “The Antique,” Rusudan Glurjidze                 
• Germany: “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Mohammad Rasoulof
• Greece: “Murderess,” Eva Nathena
• Guatemala: “Rita,” Jayro Bustamante            
• Hong Kong: “Twight of the Warriors: Walled In,” Soi Cheang           
• Hungary: “Semmelweis,” Lajos Koltai            
• Iceland: “Touch,” Baltasar Kormakur              
• India: “Lost Ladies,” Kiran Rao            
• Indonesia: “Women From Rote Island,” Jeremias Nyangoen          
• Iran: “In the Arms of the Tree,” Babak Lotfi Khajepasha
• Iraq: “Baghdad Messi,” Sahim Omar Kalifa
• Ireland: “Kneecap,” Rich Peppiatt
• Israel: “Come Closer,” Tom Nesher
• Italy: “Vermiglio,” Maura Delpero
• Japan: “Cloud,” Kurosawa Kiyoshi
• Kazakhstan: “Bauryna Salu,” Askhat Kuchinchirekov          
• Kenya: “Nawi,” Vallentine Chelluget, Apuu Mourine, Kevin & Toby Schmutzler    
• Kyrgyzstan: “Paradise at Mother’s Feet,” Rusian Akun         
• Latvia: “Flow,” Gints Zilbalodis            
• Lebanon: “Arze,” Mira Shaib
• Lithuania: “Drowning Dry,” Laurynas Bareisa            
• Malaysia: “Abang Adik,” Jin Ong         
• Malta: “Castillo,” Abigail Mallia           
• Mexico: “Sujo,” Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez
• Mongolia: “If Only I Could Hibernate,” Zoljargal Purvedash              
• Montenegro: “Supermarket,” Nemanja Becanovic
• Morocco: “Everybody Loves Touda,” Nabil Ayouch
• Nepal: “Shambhakam,” Min Bahadur Bham               
• Netherlands: “Memory Lane,” Jelle de Jonge
• Nigeria: “Mai Martaba”             
• Norway: “Armand,” Halfdan Ullman Tondel
• Pakistan: “The Glassworker,” Usman Riaz
• Palestine: “From Ground Zero,” Aws Al-Banna…
• Panama: “Wake Up Mom,” Arianne Benedetti          
• Paraguay: “The Last,” Sebastian Pena Escobar
• Peru: “Yana-Wara,” Oscar Catacora and Tito Catacora
• Philippines: “And So It Begins,” Ramona S. Diaz
• Poland: “Under the Volcano,” Damian Kocur
• Portugal: “Grand Tour,” Miguel Gomes           
• Romania : “Three Kilometres to the End of the World,”  Emanuel Parvu
• Senegal: “Dahomey,” Mati Diop         
• Serbia: “Russian Consul,” Miroslav Lekic
• Singapore: “La Luna,” M. Raihan Halim        
• Slovakia: “The Hungarian Dressmaker,” Iveta Grofova
• Slovenia: “Family Therapy,” Sonja Prosenc
• South Africa: “Old Righteous Blues,” Muneera Sallies         
• South Korea: “12.12: The Day,” Kim Sung-su              
• Spain: “Saturn Return,” Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodriguez                
• Sweden: “The Last Journey,” Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson          
• Switzerland: “Queens,” Klaudia Reynicke
• Taiwan: “Old Fox,” Hsiao Ya-chuan
• Tajikistan: “Melody,” Behrous Sebt Rasoul
• Thailand: “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies,” Pat Boonnitipat
• Tunisia: “Take My Breath,” Nada Mezni Hafaiedh
• Turkey: “Life,” Zeki Demirkubuz          
• Ukraine: “La Palisiada,” Philip Sotnychenko               
• United Kingdom: “Santosh,” Sandhya Suri
• Venezuela: “Back to Life,” Luis Carlo Hueck and Alfredo Hueck
• Vietnam: “Peach Blossom, Pho and Piano,” Phi Tien Son

The post 85 Films Competing in Oscars International Race, the Smallest Field in 9 Years appeared first on TheWrap.

With the deadline for submissions in the category passing on Wednesday and Academy members invited to become voters in the category on Friday, one big question looms over this year’s race: Can anything beat “Emilia Perez”?

At the moment, the answer appears to be no. With 82 countries having announced their entries in the race, no other film has anywhere near the visibility of the French entry, Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language musical about a Mexican drug lord who undergoes sex reassignment surgery. The film has U.S. distribution from Netflix and is considered a strong candidate for a Best Picture nomination, which in five of the last six years has been a ticket to victory in the international race. (In all six of those years, the director of the international winner has also been nominated for Best Director.)

Still, it’s too early to tell how much traction the unconventional and adventurous “Emilia Perez” will get during awards season, and a few of the other entries have some visibility. Walter Salles’ “I’m Still Here,” the Brazilian entry, has won rave reviews and comes from the director of “The Motorcycle Diaries” and “Central Station.”  Germany’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” takes place in Iran and has a backstory guaranteed to get attention: Director Mohammad Rasoulof, identified as a dissident by the Iranian government, fled that country before the film’s premiere after he’d been sentenced to flogging and imprisonment. And Italy, the country with more wins than any other, has entered “Vermiglio,” which is set during World War II — a favorite era in this category.  

Other films with a good chance in the category that has gravitated toward high-profile nominees since its voting system was changed to eliminate the executive committee that would “save” adventurous films and add them to the shortlist: Argentina’s “Kill the Jockey,” Canada’s “Universal Language,” Chile’s “In Her Place,” Denmark’s “The Girl With the Needle,” Iceland’s “Touch,” Ireland’s “Kneecap,” Norway’s “Armand,” Portugal’s “Grand Tour” and Senegal’s “Dahomey.”

Notable directors in the mix include Norway’s Halfdan Ullman Tondel, the grandson of Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullman; Senegal’s Mati Diop, who has made the shortlist twice; Chile’s Maite Alberdi, nominated twice for Best Documentary Feature; and Cambodia’s Rithy Panh, whose “The Missing Picture” was nominated in the international category.

Wednesday, Oct. 2 was the final day films could be submitted to the Academy; 77 countries had announced their submissions by the end of that day, with another five doing so since then. (In addition, Venezuela announced a new submission, “Vuelve a la Vida,” and said their original entry, “Children of Las Brisas,” failed to qualify because it had a streaming release prior to its theatrical debut. All other entries will need to be vetted by the Academy as well.)

Academy-authorized selection committees were required to choose a film and submit entry materials to AMPAS by 5 p.m. PT on Wednesday, but they’re under no obligation to announce those submissions — so the current list of 82 submissions is likely to be increased by a handful of additional films that will bring the total close to last year’s 88 eligible films. (The record is 93, but that seems unlikely.)

To date, more than a dozen countries that submitted films last year have yet to announce submissions for 2024. That includes Australia, Luxembourg, Nigeria, North Macedonia (which announced that it had no eligible films to choose from), Paraguay, Singapore and South Africa.

Only one of this year’s entries, Ireland’s “Kneecap,” is currently available to be viewed in the members-only Academy Screening Room, but a second screening room devoted to the international category will open on Friday, Oct. 18 and will eventually contain all the eligible films. Academy members received an email on Friday inviting them to opt in as voters in the international and animated feature categories.

A previous email went out last week and told prospective voters that if they opted in, they’d be required to view 12 or 13 films, the same number as last year. The email added that viewing assignments will be made on Nov. 1 and preliminary voting will run from Dec. 9-13, with the 15-film shortlist announced on Dec. 17.  

The International Feature Film Award Executive Committee, which oversees the category, will be chaired this year by Rajendra Roy, who has served as co-chair for the last three years, and Ngozi Onwurah, a filmmaker from the Short Films Branch who is replacing director Susanne Bier as a co-chair.

Click here to see TheWrap’s list of all the submissions announced so far, with descriptions and links to trailers when available.

The post Oscars Best International Film Race Tops 80 Submissions Hoping to Knock Off ‘Emilia Perez’ appeared first on TheWrap.

At this point, it also has no real frontrunners.

So far, 2024 has been a down year at the box office and a confusing year on the film festival circuit. Before the fall festivals, the Oscar race was something of a waiting game, with everybody curious about the potential contenders that would be unveiled in Venice, Telluride and Toronto.

And now that those festivals have run their course, it’s a different kind of waiting game: waiting to see which films can start feeling like serious contenders rather than long-to-medium shots.

There’s no big commercial movie out there with the clout that “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie” showed last year. And no indie film that seems to have the buzz to become this year’s “CODA” or “Everything Everywhere All at Once.”

Instead, the race is a whole bunch of maybes: maybe this movie will catch on with awards bodies, maybe that yet-unseen movie will be a no-doubter, maybe the international voters that have transformed Academy membership over the last six years will make bold choices …

It’s October, Oscar voting begins in a little more than three months, and the big show will take place in about five. So here’s a look at the components of this year’s race so far.

Big sequels

Apart from “The Godfather Part II” and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King,” sequels don’t win Best Picture. And more often than not, they don’t get nominated, either: Since the Best Picture roster was expanded from five to 10 in 2009, only four of the 136 nominees have been sequels. (Those four were “Toy Story,” “Mad Max,” “Top Gun” and “Avatar” sequels.)

But four massive sequels are hitting screens in 2024, three of them already out. Of those three, Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two” seems to be the best bet, considering that its predecessor received 10 nominations and led all films with six wins in 2021. “Furiosa: A Mad Max Story” seemed to have less of an impact when it was released after the Cannes Film Festival, while “Joker: Folie à Deux” received wildly mixed reviews in Venice and could be a tough sell to voters as it shifts in and out of fantasy and in and out of musical numbers set to classic pop songs, all within the framework of what is essentially a courtroom drama for its second hour.

“Gladiator II,” the long-delayed sequel to Ridley Scott’s 2000 Best Picture winner, hasn’t screened yet but has to be considered a strong contender. But it’s worth noting that Scott has made 18 movies in the 24 years since the first “Gladiator,” and only one of them, 2015’s “The Martian,” was nominated for Best Picture. “Gladiator II” will need to recapture some of that “Gladiator I”/”Martian” mojo rather than remind viewers of his last two films, “House of Gucci” and “Napoleon.”

Cannes movies and international films

Two movies came out of the Cannes Film Festival with a seemingly clear path to Best Picture nominations. Sean Baker’s “Anora,” the Palme d’Or winner, is the raucous, very funny and unexpectedly moving story of a sex worker who gets involved with the son of a Russian oligarch. It might have been too wild and too sexual for the old Academy, but it shouldn’t be a problem for the current membership. And with the organization now increasingly international, things also look good for French director Jacques Audiard’s Spanish-language “Emilia Perez,” a full-fledged musical about a Mexican cartel leader who undergoes sex reassignment surgery.

A couple of other films – like “Emilia Perez,” their home countries’ entries in the Oscars’ Best International Feature Film race – also premiered at festivals and have an outside chance of picking up some Best Picture heat. “I’m Still Here,”  a wrenching family story set in Brazil during the military dictatorship in the 1970s, is the first film in more than a decade from “Central Station” and “The Motorcycle Diaries” director Walter Salles, and it won raves in Venice and Toronto. Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” which focuses on an Iranian judge whose promotion puts him in an ethical quandary, is a dark horse. But the director’s own story may give it a boost. Identified by the state as a dissident, he was sentenced to be flogged and imprisoned, and fled the country ahead of his film’s Cannes premiere.

Other festival movies

Of the other films that premiered in Venice, Telluride and Toronto, the one with the most buzz is probably Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist,” a three-and-a-half-hour epic (with built-in intermission) starring Adrien Brody as a European architect who comes to the U.S. after fleeing the Holocaust. “The Brutalist” may be more of a movie for critics than voters, but it’s probably impressive enough to be in the mix all season.

Another bold vision is RaMell Ross’s “Nickel Boys,” an adaptation of the book by Colson Whitehead. The film tells the story of brutality in a Florida reform school, filmed from the point of view of the protagonist in a style that can be lyrical but also disorienting. It’s told in images as much as in dialogue — a dramatic contrast to Malcolm Washington’s “The Piano Lesson,” in which an all-star cast grabs hold of the 1987 August Wilson play, and to Pedro Almodóvar’s English-language debut, “The Room Next Door,” which is structured around lengthy conversations between characters played by Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore.

Pablo Larraín’s “Maria,” which stars Angelina Jolie as diva Maria Callas, is strong in both words and images; perhaps the strongest of Larraín’s three English-language movies about iconic women (the first two being “Jackie” and “Spencer”). It will certainly get Jolie lots of Best Actress attention but could also get recognition for the film.

The sleeper among other festival movies may be Swiss director Tim Fehlbaum’s “September 5,” a drama about the 1972 Munich Olympic hostage crisis that sets the action almost entirely inside the building where an ABC news crew is trying to cover the story. The novelty of having a thriller where the action is taking place somewhere else could make the film feel fresh to voters.

Finally, Jesse Eisenberg’s “A Real Pain” debuted at Sundance way back in January, a festival that doesn’t often place films into the Best Picture category, “CODA” notwithstanding.

Directors with Oscar pedigree

More than a dozen films are in contention from directors who’ve had films in the Best Picture race in the past — not just “Dune: Part Two,” “Gladiator II,” “Joker: Folie a Deux” and “Furiosa,” but also new work from Steve McQueen, Mike Leigh, Luca Guadagnino, Edward Berger, Jason Reitman, James Mangold, Richard Linklater and John Crowley.

We’ll cover Mangold and Linklater’s movies elsewhere in this piece. Leigh’s “Hard Truths” is corrosive and brilliant, with a scorching lead performance by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who starred in Leigh’s Best Picture nominee “Secrets and Lies” in 1995. But it will take some serious work to get this tough but understated gem on voters’ radar. The two 2024 films from “Call Me by Your Name” director Guadagnino, “Challengers” and “Queer,” might be even tougher sells, though both have their fans.

McQueen’s “Blitz” and Berger’s “Conclave,” though, are strong contenders. The former finds the “12 Years a Slave” director mounting a muscular World War II story in which a young mother (Saoirse Ronan) searches a ravished London for her lost son. The latter, which comes two years after Berger’s “All Quiet on the Western Front” won numerous Oscars, is a stylish thriller set inside the conclave to select a new pope. Both have the feel of likely nominees.

Reitman’s “Saturday Night,” meanwhile, might be a more obvious choice for the Golden Globes or Critics Choice Awards’ comedy categories, but the breakneck pace and infectious energy of his look at the prelude to the first episode of “Saturday Night Live” could easily sway Oscar voters as well. And don’t rule out “We Live in Time,” a romantic comedy of sorts from “Brooklyn” director Crowley, which benefits from a stellar central couple in Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield and manages to be moving when you think it might get sappy.

Indies that won raves earlier this year

The year has already seen a handful of releases that could end up on an array of Top 10 lists. But the success of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” notwithstanding, it’s not easy for small films from earlier in the year to make a mark in awards season. Greg Kwedar’s “Sing Sing,” with a powerhouse performance by Colman Domingo in a film about a theater production inside a prison, has played very well in front of industry audiences and probably has the best shot at being an awards player.

Sadly, Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man” and Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders,” which were released in May and June, respectively, are both longshots, albeit richly deserving ones. And Alex Garland’s “Civil War” is the biggest hit of the group, with a worldwide gross of more than $120 million that puts it second only to “Everything Everywhere” among A24 films.

By the way, “Hit Man” and “The Bikeriders” are among the 36 films currently available to Oscar voters in the members-only screening platform known as the Academy Screening Room. Other notable films in the room, which adds new films every Friday, include “His Three Daughters,” “Kinds of Kindness,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” and “Thelma.”

Yet to be seen

Here’s a rule of thumb for potential awards contenders that have yet to screen for voters or at film festivals heading into October: Most of them will not be nominated for Best Picture. Sure, one or two latecomers usually slip in, but the majority fizzle out. So at this point, it’s hard to be optimistic about the chances for what appears to be a strong lineup of yet-unseen contenders that includes James Mangold’s “A Complete Unknown,” Robert Eggers’ “Nosferatu,” Robert Zemeckis’ “Here,” Clint Eastwood’s “Juror #2” and Jon M. Chu’s “Wicked,” among others. (“Gladiator II” is also on this list, of course.)

Can “Wicked” overcome the fact that “West Side Story” is the only adaptation of a Broadway musical to be nominated for Best Picture in the last decade, a period that included film versions of “The Color Purple,” “Dear Evan Hansen,” “In the Heights,” “Tick, Tick … Boom” and “Cats,” among others?

Can Timothee Chalamet be a convincing Bob Dylan in Mangold’s “A Complete Unknown,” a biopic of a guy who seems spectacularly ill-suited to biopics? (Todd Haynes used six different actors to play Dylan in “I’m Not There,” and Martin Scorsese’s last “documentary” about the singer pretty much made everything up.)

Can Eggers get a horror movie into the Best Picture lineup for the first time since “The Exorcist?” Can Eastwood, who perfected the art of an 11th-hour Oscar surprise with “Million Dollar Baby,” drop another bomb into the race with the courtroom drama “Juror #2?” Can Zemeckis finally get his second Best Picture nomination on the 30th anniversary of his first one for “Forrest Gump?”

My guess is that the answer to most of those questions is No, though “A Complete Unknown” and “Gladiator II” might have the best shot. But like everybody else, I’m flying blind here.

Animated contenders

Every year, people wonder if any animated films will manage to crash the Best Picture race. And every year since 2010, none has. (The same question is asked about documentaries, which never make the jump.) As long as there’s a separate category for animated features, voters just don’t seem inclined to include them in the best-pic vote.

This year there are two strong contenders trying to buck that trend. Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” has the added burden of being the sequel to a movie that won Best Animated Feature but wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. But at least its filmmakers can remind themselves that one of the three animated films to be nominated in the category, 2010’s“Toy Story 3,” was also a Pixar sequel. And then there’s Universal and DreamWorks Animation’s “The Wild Robot,” with wildly laudatory reviews but a tougher road to Oscar, given voters’ longstanding love for Disney/Pixar.

Too much?

Finally, let’s look at a group of films that may simply be too tough, too dark or too weird even for a more adventurous Academy. The Cannes sensation “The Substance” likely falls in this group, though the long and graphic body-horror film will no doubt bring lots of heat for lead actress Demi Moore. But will voters outside the Actors Branch get through the first hour of the film on the screening platform? I’d be very curious to see those stats — though even if the Academy keeps track, it would never spill the beans.

Halina Reijn’s “Babygirl” and Marielle Heller’s “Nightbitch” are two other films in which attention is likely to go to the lead actresses — Nicole Kidman and Amy Adams, respectively — while the films themselves may be a bit extreme for voters. And while Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice” is pretty restrained for the director who brought us troll sex in “Border,” the story of the making of Donald Trump will either seem wildly timely or just too off-putting. Let’s just say that if Kamala Harris wins the election, voters may want to move on.

And then there’s Francis Coppola’s enormous and unwieldy passion project, “Megalopolis,” which divided audiences in Cannes and dropped like a lead balloon at the box office last weekend. Maybe you can’t rule out Coppola, but his film pretty much defines the term too much.

So what gets in?

The short answer: I don’t know. Nobody does, really.

But in a year that is still struggling to figure out where it’s going, here are my best early-October guesses – a top 10 followed by five additional films:

“Emilia Perez” (Neflix)
“Anora” (Neon)
“Conclave” (Focus)
“Blitz” (Apple Original Films)
“The Brutalist” (A24)
“Sing Sing” (A24)
“Dune: Part Two” (Warner Bros.)
“Gladiator II” (Paramount)
“A Complete Unknown” (Searchlight)
“Saturday Night” (Sony)

“September 5” (Paramount)
“I’m Still Here” (Sony Pictures Classics)
“Maria” (Netflix)
“Hard Truths” (Bleecker Street)
“We Live in Time” (A24)

The post Early Oscar Best Picture Predictions: Where Are the Frontrunners? appeared first on TheWrap.

The Netflix film, which caused a sensation at the Cannes Film Festival with its story of a Mexican drug lord undergoing sex reassignment surgery, is considered one of the year’s likeliest Best Picture nominees, making it a clear favorite in the international category as well.

It was chosen on Wednesday by a selection committee that had narrowed its choices to four: “Emilia Perez,” Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light,” Matthieu Delaporte’s “The Count of Monte Cristo” and Alain Guiraudie’s “Misericordia.”

Last year, that committee chose “The Taste of Things” over “Anatomy of a Fall,” going with a ravishing romance over an edgier drama that had won the top prize in Cannes. “The Taste of Things” ended up making the shortlist but not being nominated, while “Anatomy of a Fall” received four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress, and won in the Best Original Screenplay category.

The choice of “Emilia Perez” can partially be seen as a mea culpa from the French committee, who almost certainly lost out on a nomination by not choosing “Anatomy” last year.

France leads all countries in the number of nominations in the category, and it’s second only to Italy in the number of wins. It has made the shortlist in three of the last four years, but it wasn’t nominated any of those years. Its last nomination was for “Les Miserables” in 2019, and its last win was for “Indochine” in 1992, more than 30 years ago.

While “Emilia Perez” is by far the highest profile film in the category so far, other notable films in this year’s international race include Germany’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” from Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof, who fled Iran after being sentenced to flogging and nine years in prison for making the film in secret.

Also in the running: Cambodia’s “Meeting With Pol Pot” from Rithy Panh, the director who brought Cambodia its only Oscar nomination with “The Missing Picture”; Iceland’s “Touch,” from director Baltasar Kormakur; Ireland’s “Kneecap”; Morocco’s “Everybody Loves Touda” and Portugal’s “Grand Tour.”

Each country with a selection committee authorized by the Academy can submit a single film for consideration in the race. A first round of voting by volunteers from all branches of the Academy will narrow the field down to a 15-film shortlist, which will be announced in late December; a second round open to voters who watch all the films on the shortlist will choose the five nominees.

With two weeks remaining before the Oct. 2 deadline for submissions, more than 50 countries have announced their choices. This is on par with the pace of submissions last year, when 89 countries entered films and 88 were deemed eligible, five shy of the record of 93.

Here is the list of submissions so far. Inclusion on this list does not guarantee that a film will qualify, because the Academy still needs to vet each film to make sure it meets eligibility requirements ranging from the amount of non-English dialogue to the creative control exercised by the country of origin.

A list with descriptions of every entry and links to available trailers is here.

Albania: “Waterdrop,” Robert Budina

Algeria: “Algiers,” Chakib Taleb-Bendiab

Armenia: “Yasha and Leonid Brezhnev,” Edgar Baghdasaryan

Austria: “The Devil’s Bath,” Veronika Franz & Several Fiala

Belgium: “Julie Keeps Quiet,” Leonardo Van Dijl

Bolivia: “Own Hand,” Rodrigo “Gory” Patino

Bulgaria: “Triumph,” Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov

Cambodia: “Meeting With Pol Pot,” Rithy Panh

Canada: “Universal Language,” Matthew Rankin

Chile: “In Her Place,” Maite Alberdi

Colombia: “La Suprema,” Felipe Holguin Caro

Costa Rica: “Memories of a Burning Body,” Antonella Sudasassi

Croatia: “Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day,” Ivona Juka

Czech Republic: “Waves,” Jiri Madi

Ecuador: “Behind the Mist,” Sebastian Cordero

Egypt: “Flight 404,” Hani Khalifa

Estonia: “8 Views of Lake Biwa,” Marko Raat

Finland: “Family Time,” Tia Kouvo

France: “Emilia Perez,” Jacques Audiard

Georgia: “The Antique,” Rusudan Glurjidze

Germany: “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Mohammad Rasoulof

Greece: “Murderess,” Eva Nathena

Hungary: “Semmelweis,” Lajos Koltai

Iceland: “Touch,” Baltasar Kormakur

Indonesia: “Women From Rote Island,” Jeremias Nyangoen

Iraq: “Baghdad Messi,” Sahim Omar Kalifa

Ireland: “Kneecap,” Rich Peppiatt

Israel: “Come Closer,” Tom Nesher

Japan: “Cloud,” Kurosawa Kiyoshi

Kenya: “Nawi,” Vallentine Chelluget, Apuu Mourine, Kevin Schmutzler and Toby Schmutzler

Kyrgyzstan: “Heaven Is Beneath Mother’s Feet,” Rusian Akun

Latvia: “Flow,” Gints Zilbalodis

Lithuania: “Drowning Dry,” Laurynas Bareisa

Morocco: “Everybody Loves Touda,” Nabil Ayouch

Nepal: “Shambhala,” Min Bahadur Bham

Netherlands: “Memory Lane,” Jelle de Jonge

Palestine: “From Ground Zero,” Aws Al-Banna, Ahmed Al-Danf, Basil Al-Maqousi, Mustafa Al-Nabih, Muhammad Alshareef, Ala Ayob, Bashar Al Balbisi, Alaa Damo, Awad Hana, Ahmad Hassunah, Mustafa Kallab, Satoum Kareem, Mahdi Karera, Rabab Khamees, Khamees Masharawi, Wissam Moussa, Tamer Najm, Abu Hasna Nidaa, Damo Nidal, Mahmoud Reema, Etimad Weshah and Islam Al Zrieai

Panama: “Wake Up Mom,” Arianne Benedetti

Peru: “Yana-Wara,” Oscar Catacora and Tito Catacora

Poland: “Under the Volcano,” Damian Kocur

Portugal: “Grand Tour,” Miguel Gomes

Romania : “Three Kilometres to the End of the World,”  Emanuel Parvu

Senegal: “Dahomey,” Mati Diop

Serbia: “Russian Consul,” Miroslav Lekic

Slovakia: “The Hungarian Dressmaker,” Iveta Grofova

Slovenia: “Family Therapy,” Sonja Prosenc

South Korea: “12.12: The Day,” Kim Sung-su

Spain: “Saturn Return,” Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodriguez

Taiwan: “Old Fox,” Hsiao Ya-chuan

Turkey: “Life,” Zeki Demirkubuz

Ukraine: “La Palisiada,” Philip Sotnychenko

Uruguay: “The Door Is There,” Facundo Ponce de Leon and Juan Ponce de Leon

The post Oscars International Race Gets a Clear Frontrunner as France Submits ‘Emilia Perez’ appeared first on TheWrap.

Any country with a selection committee that has been approved by the Academy is allowed to submit a single film for consideration in the category. Volunteers from all branches of the Academy will cast ballots in an initial round of voting that narrows the field to a 15-film shortlist, which will be announced on Dec. 17. A second round of voting, which is restricted to members who watch all of the shortlisted films, will select the final five nominees.

Here is the complete list of submissions that were assigned to voters in seven different groups. This is not the official final list of qualifying films, but the list films that are assigned to voters almost always matches that official list.

Links to trailers are included when available.

Albania: “Waterdrop,” Robert Budina
The city manager in a small town in Albania is shaken when her teenage son is arrested and accused of raping a classmate, but her attempt to put the blame on the mayor’s son forces her to acknowledge her own complicity. Director Robert Budina previously represented Albania in the Oscar race with “Agon” in 2013.
Trailer (no English subtitles)

Algeria: “Algiers,” Chakib Taleb-Bendiab
Writer-director Taleb-Bendiab, best known for the 2018 short film “Black Spirits,” has set his first feature in the 1990s during the Algerian Civil War. The film deals with a young girl whose kidnapping is being investigated by a police inspector and a psychiatrist.  Algeria won the Oscar for its first-ever submission, 1969‘s “Z,” and has been nominated four times since then, most recently in 2010.

Argentina: “Kill the Jockey,” Luis Ortega
A jockey who rides for a Brazilian mobster goes on the run after accidentally killing one of the gangster’s race horses in the new film from director Luis Ortega, whose “El Angel” was Argentina’s Oscar submission six years ago. The film premiered in the main competition at this year’s Venice International Film Festival.
Subtitled trailer

Armenia: “Yasha and Leonid Brezhnev,” Edgar Baghdasaryan
One year after Armenia made the Oscar shortlist for the first time with “Amerikatsi,” a comedic film set in the Soviet era, the country has submitted another film that mixes politics and laughs. “Yasha and Leonid Brezhnev” is an absurdist comedy in which the spirits of Brezhnev and other communist leaders appear to an aging factory worker who feels lost after the collapse of the Soviet Union and disappointed in his meager pension.
Subtitled trailer

Austria: “The Devil’s Bath,” Veronika Franz & Several Fiala
Horror directors Franz and Fiala (“The Lodge,” “Goodnight Mommy”) have based their film on the true story of women in 18th century Austria who, in lieu of killing themselves and facing eternal damnation, would commit murder and be put to death after repenting and going to confession. The film had its world premiere at the Berlin Film Festival and is being distributed by Shudder.
Subtitled trailer

Bangladesh: “The Wrestler,” Iqbal Hossain Chowdhury
The feature debut for the Bangladeshi-Canadian director Iqbal Hossain Chowdhury, “The Wrestler” won the New Currents Award at the 2023 Busan International Film Festival. The story of a fisherman set against the backdrop of an annual wrestling competition in Chattogram, the film is the 20th Bangladeshi submission to the Oscars, with the country still looking for its first nomination or spot on the shortlist.
Subtitled teaser trailer

Belgium: “Julie Keeps Quiet,” Leonardo Van Dijl
The feature directorial debut for Leonardo Van Dijl focuses on a star tennis player who opts not to speak up when her coach at a top tennis academy is accused of misconduct and suspended. The film premiered in the independent Critics Week section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival and won the Gan Foundation and SACD Awards.
Subtitled trailer

Bolivia: “Own Hand,” Rodrigo “Gory” Patino
Based on “Tribes of the Inquisition,” a 2013 investigation by journalist Roberto Navia into the lynching of six suspected thieves in a small Bolivian town, “Own Hand” tells a story of vigilante justice  from the perspective of a prosecutor, a father and one of the accused. Bolivia has been submitting films since 1995 but has yet to land a nomination.
Trailer (no subtitles)

Bosnia and Herzegovina: “My Late Summer,” Danis Tanovic
Danis Tanovic is the only director to have won an Oscar for Bosnia, which he did in 2002 with “No Man’s Land.” His new film stars Anja Matkovic as a woman who must face her past when she goes to a remote island to help resolve an estate problem. The drama was the opening-night presentation at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.
Subtitled trailer

Brazil: “I’m Still Here,” Walter Salles
“The Motorcycle Diaries” and “Central Station” director Walter Salles won raves in Venice and Toronto for this drama, his first narrative film in more than a decade. The film is based on Marcelo Rubens Paiva’s book about the disappearance of his father, Rubens Paiva, during the military dictatorship in Brazil from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s. Actress Fernanda Torres stars as a woman whose husband is taken – and her mother, Fernanda Montenegro, 94, the only Brazilian actress ever nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, plays the elderly version of the character.   
Subtitled trailer

Bulgaria: “Triumph,” Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov
Five years ago, directors Grozeva and Valchanov represented the country in the Oscar race with “The Father,” a drama that included then-unknown Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova in a small role. Bakalova subsequently landed an Oscar nomination for “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm,” and she’s back in “Triumph” with a large part and a job as one of the film’s producers. The blackly humorous film is based on the true story of how a psychic convinced the Bulgarian military to spend two years digging tunnels underneath a field in search of a spaceship that she said had been left there by aliens.
Video interview with Petar Valchanov, Maria Bakalova and Julian Kostov

Cambodia: “Meeting With Pol Pot,” Rithy Panh
Loosely based on reporting from inside Cambodia by American journalist Elizabeth Becker, “Meeting With Pol Pot” stars Irene Jacob stars as a journalist who is granted rare access to Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot. Director Rithy Panh has been exploring this territory in his films for years, and his 2013 documentary  “The Missing Picture” remains the only Cambodian film ever nominated for the international Oscar. That film used clay figures to tell its story, a technique that also pops up at times in his new work.
Trailer (French subtitles)

Cameroon: “Kismet,” Ngang Romanus
When a young Christian woman falls in love with a Muslim man, she becomes the reluctant mediator between two warring factions in this drama whose tagline is “discover the triumph of compassion over adversity as the hero leads a quest for justice.” Cameroon has had six films in the Oscar race, with 2021’s “Hidden Dreams” also coming from director Ngang Romanus.
Subtitled trailer

Canada: “Universal Language,” Matthew Rankin
Taking place in a dreamscape that is part Winnipeg, part Tehran, Matthew Rankin’s playful film follows a pair of kids who find money frozen in an icy path and must traverse the city looking for a way to get it out. But there’s a lot more than that to the deadpan and impeccably designed film, which TheWrap said “finds moments of awe and beauty in the smallest of places” in its Cannes review. 
Subtitled trailer

Chile: “In Her Place,” Maite Alberdi
Chilean director Maite Alberdi is best known for documentaries like “The Mole Agent” and “The Eternal Memory,” both of which were nominated for Oscars in the doc-feature category. “In Her Place” is a narrative film that’s based on the true story of a writer, Maria Carolina Geel, who is put on trial for killing her lover in Chile in 1955.
Subtitled trailer

Colombia: “La Suprema,” Felipe Holguin Caro
The debut feature from Felipe Holguin Caro is set in a small town in the Caribbean that doesn’t yet have electricity. When a teenager in that town learns that her uncle, a boxer, will be fighting for the world championship, she decides that she too wants to be a fighter – while the town rallies to bring electricity and television to the town square, and to literally put the town back on the map.  
Trailer (no English subtitles)

Costa Rica: “Memories of a Burning Body,” Antonella Sudasassi
Three women over 60 talk about their upbringing in a society where female sexuality was never discussed, with their voiceovers illustrated by two actresses playing an archetypal woman at different ages. This is Sudasassi’s second feature; her first, 2019’s “The Awakening of the Ants,” also represented Costa Rica in the Oscar race.
Subtitled trailer

Croatia: “Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day,” Ivona Juka
A movie about moviemaking, “Beautiful Evening, Beautiful Day” is set in the 1950s in the former Yugoslavia and deals with filmmakers of that era who used their work to argue for a fairer society. The film is the second consecutive Croatian submission to be directed by a woman, following last year’s “Traces.”

Czech Republic: “Waves,” Jiri Madl
The winner of the audience award at this year’s Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, “Waves” tells the story of journalists who were working for Czechoslovak radio in the late 1960s, and who had to deal with government interference during the Prague Spring of 1968 and the subsequent Warsaw Pact invasion of the country. Writer-director Madl incorporated archival material from the era into his newly-shot footage.

Denmark: “The Girl With the Needle,” Magnus von Horn
This period drama from co-writer and director Magnus von Horn stars Trine Dynholm (“In a Better World,” “The Celebration”) as a fictionalized version of an early 19th-century woman who operated what she claimed was an undercover adoption agency for disadvantaged mothers. The film premiered in the Main Competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Denmark has had a remarkable run at the Oscars recently, with two wins, seven nominations and 11 spots on the shortlist in the last 14 years.
Subtitled clip

Dominican Republic: “Aire: Just Breathe,” Letitia Tonos
Dystopian sci-fi is an attractive genre these days, and it enters the Oscar race in this drama set in a world that has become nearly uninhabitable. Sophie Gaelle plays a scientist whose finds herself in an uneasy relationship with an artificial intelligence system and a mysterious human traveler.  This is the fourth time that a Letitia Tonos film has represented the Dominican Republic in the Oscar race, more often than any other director.  
Subtitled trailer

Ecuador: “Behind the Mist,” Sebastian Cordero
This 3D documentary finds director Sebastian Cordero attempting to climb Mount Everest with Ivan Vallejo, who in 1999 became the first Ecuadorian to ever reach that summit. Cordero has directed three of the 12 movies Ecuador has submitted to the Oscars, more than any other director.
Subtitled trailer

Egypt: “Flight 404,” Hani Khalifa
Mona Zaki stars in this suspenseful drama as a woman who must suddenly raise a large sum of money before making a pilgrimage to Mecca. The financial emergency forces her to get in touch with people from a difficult past. The film also includes more than a dozen new songs from composer Suad Bushnaq.
Subtitled trailer

Estonia: “8 Views of Lake Biwa,” Marko Raat
The central characters in the new film by veteran Estonian director, documentarian and video artist Marko Raat are two teenage girls who live in a remote fishing village. The lyrical film uses Japanese storytelling techniques to explore the aftereffects of a communal tragedy.  
Subtitled trailer

Finland: “Family Time,” Tia Kouvo
“Family Time” is based on Tia Kouvo’s 2018 short film “Mummola,” and is her feature directorial debut.  The film, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival in 2023, deals with a family at its annual Christmas gathering.
Subtitled trailer

France: “Emilia Perez,” Jacques Audiard
Last year, France’s selection committee bypassed the Cannes Palme d’Or winner, “Anatomy of a Fall,” which ended up landing five other nominations and winning an Oscar for its screenplay,  in favor of the beautiful but more conventional “The Taste of Things,” which wasn’t nominated. That misstep may well have influenced the committee’s decision this year to select the 2024 Cannes sensation “Emilia Perez” over the more straightforward “The Count of Monte Cristo.” “Emilia Perez” is a bold and nervy film, a musical drama about a Mexican drug lord to undergoes sex reassignment surgery to evade authorities and to affirm her gender. Netflix bought the film out of Cannes, where its four lead actresses shared the festival’s best actress prize.
Subtitled trailer

Georgia: “The Antique,” Rusudan Glurjidze
Even before its premiere at this year’s Venice Film Festival, controversy surrounded this drama that deals with the deportation of several thousand Georgians from Russia in 2006. The film’s screenwriter remains anonymous to protect themselves, while the Russian Ministry of Culture demanded that more than a dozen scenes be cut and attempted to seize footage at customs. The Venice premiere was also delayed by several days by a copyright dispute.
Subtitled trailer

Germany: “The Seed of the Sacred Fig,” Mohammad Rasoulof
Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof has repeatedly been arrested for “propaganda against the regime” in his home country, and earlier this year he was sentenced to flogging and to eight years in prison after secretly filming this movie about a judge in Iran’s Revolutionary Court who finds that he is expected to rubber-stamp executions without waiting for investigations to take place. He left Iran, escaped to Germany and won a special award in Cannes for this film, which includes news footage of political protests that had been suppressed by the government. This is the first Persian-language submission by Germany, which in the past 22 years has won three times and been nominated 10 times.
Subtitled trailer

Greece: “Murderess,” Eva Nathena
Greece’s selection process this year was chaotic after the Greek Culture Ministry either replaced the previous selection committee or came up with a list of potential  new members that was then prematurely released. (Accounts differ depending on who’s telling the story.) Citing ministry interference, some committee members resigned and the producers of all but one of the 20-plus films that had been submitted withdrew their films from consideration in protest. “Murderess,” which is set in 19th-century Greece at a time when women had no agency, was the one remaining contender and became the default selection.
Subtitled trailer

Guatemala: “Rita,” Jayro Bustamante
Guatemala has only submitted five films to the Oscars, and Bustamante was the director of three of them: 2015’s “Ixcanul,” 2020’s “La Llorona,” which made the shortlist, and this supernatural horror film about an abused teenager who escapes from her father but ends up in an institution filled with supernatural beings. The film won the award for cinematography at the Fantasia International Film Festival, where it premiered.
Subtitled trailer

Hong Kong: “Twilight of the Warriors: Walled In,” Soi Cheang
A martial arts crime movie set in a densely-populated, mazelike city that serves as the setting for two hours of wild, almost nonstop action, “Twilight of the Warriors” is a commercial hit (the second-highest-grossing domestic film in Hong Kong history) and a prestige project that landed a berth in the Midnight Screening section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Hong Kong periodically submits action movies to the Oscars, but 2013’s “The Grandmaster” was the only one to get as far as the shortlist.
Subtitled trailer

Hungary: “Semmelweis,” Lajos Koltai
Lajos Koltai has made more than 50 films as a cinematographer, receiving an Oscar nominatioin for “Malena” in 2000, but he’s only made three as a director – including one, 2005’s “Fateless,” that also represented Hungary in the Oscar race. “Semmelweis” is a period drama set in the mid 19th century and based on the life of a doctor who pioneered cleaner techniques to stop an epidemic in a maternity clinic in Vienna.
Subtitled trailer

Iceland: “Touch,” Baltasar Kormakur
Baltasar Kormakur is best known for high-octane films like “The Deep,” “Contraband,” “2 Guns” and “Everest,” but this one is a romance about an elderly man in search of the woman he loved 50 years earlier. The film jumps from the present day to flashbacks to London in 1969 and Japan in 1980. The film received a limited theatrical release in the U.S. in July. This is the fifth film from Kormakur to be Iceland’s Oscar submission, with “The Deep” making the shortlist in 2012.
Subtitled trailer

India: “Lost Ladies,” Kiran Rao
A comedy about two veiled brides who are accidentally switched on the way to their weddings, Kiran Rao’s film premiered in Toronto last year and was a big boxoffice hit in India. The film won out over 28 other contenders, including Payal Kapadia’s Cannes Grand Prix winner “All We Imagine as Light,” which was deemed “like a foreign film and not like Indian cinema” by the head of the Film Federation of India. “Laapataa Ladies” is the latest in a long line of curious submissions by India’s Oscar selection committee, which raised eyebrows with a statement that began, “Indian women are a strange mixture of submission and dominance.”
Subtitled trailer

Indonesia: “Women From Rote Island,” Jeremias Nyangoen
Writer-director Jeremias Nyangoen made his feature directorial debut with “Women From Rote Island,” a drama in which an undocumented migrant worker faces sexual violence after returning to her hometown for the funeral of her father. Nyangoen cast local actors from southern Indonesia to preserve the local flavor of the film.
Subtitled trailer

Iran: “In the Arms of the Tree,” Babak Lotfi Khajepasha
While Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” was selected as the international entry by Germany after the director fled from his home country, Iran’s selection committee has opted for a family drama from Babak Lotfi Khajepsha, leading to protests from the dissident Iranian Independent Filmmaker Association that the Oscars should not be accepting the submission of a government-controlled committee. The film is focused on a couple who are experiencing trouble after 12 years of marriage, and on the effect the marital problems have on their children.

Iraq: “Baghdad Messi,” Sahim Omar Kalifa
Sahim Omar Kalifa’s film stars Ahmed Mohammed Abdullah as a young Iraqi boy who loses his leg in a suicide bombing but continues to dream of become a soccer player like his idol, Lionel Messi. The film is based on Kalifa’s 2014 short of the same name, which was shortlisted in the Oscars’ live-action short category.
Subtitled trailer

Ireland: “Kneecap,” Rich Peppiatt
The Sundance film, which is in a mixture of English and Irish, tells the somewhat fictionalized story of the Irish duo Kneecap, which is made up of two drug dealers who rap in Irish. The cast includes Michael Fassbender. Sony Pictures Classics has U.S. distribution.
Subtitled trailer

Israel: “Come Closer,” Tom Nesher
“Come Closer” became the Israeli submission by virtue of winning the Best Picture prize at the Ophir Awards, that country’s version of the Oscars. It also won for directing and editing and for lead actress Lia Elalouf, who plays a young woman who becomes obsessed with the girlfriend of her late brother. The film was inspired by the unexpected death of the brother of director Tom Nesher (who is the daughter of veteran Israeli filmmaker Avi Nesher).

Italy: “Vermiglio,” Maura Delpero
Winner of the Grand Jury prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival, “Vermiglio” is set in a remote mountain village in Italy during the final months of World War II, where the secrets of the inhabitants are revealed in a variety of plotlines and subplots. Maura Delpero is the first female director in 19 years to be selected to represent Italy in the race. The film was selected over contenders that also included “Parthenope” by Paolo Sorrentino, whose films include  “The Great Beauty,” the last of the 11 films that have given Italy more international Oscar wins than any other country.
Subtitled trailer

Japan: “Cloud,” Kurosawa Kiyoshi
The central character in “Cloud” is a young man who makes a lucrative living buying and reselling trendy goods (and occasional counterfeits) on the internet – but who also learns that his often underhanded techniques have given him a long list of online enemies. The film is part character study and part creepy thriller before it arrives at a very long, very violent final act.  
Subtitled trailer

Kazakhstan: “Bauryna Salu,” Askhat Kuchinchirekov
An actor who appeared in the Kazakh Oscar submissions “Tulpan” in 2008 and “Ayka” in 2018, Ashkat Kuchinchirekov makes his feature directorial debut with this coming-of-age drama about a boy who comes to live with his parents after being raised by his grandmother for the first 12 years of his life, following the custom of his nomadic community. The film premiered at the San Sebastian Film Festival in 2023.
Trailer (no dialogue)

Kenya: “Nawi,” Vallentine Chelluget, Apuu Mourine, Kevin Schmutzler and Toby Schmutzler
Two Keynan directors have joined with the German-born directing team of Kevin and Toby Schmutzler for this drama about a young girl in rural northwestern Kenya who enters a nationwide writing contest. The film is Kenya’s ninth submission in the Oscars international category, with none of the previous eight making it to the shortlist.
Subtitled trailer

Kyrgyzstan: “Paradise at Mother’s Feet,” Rusian Akun
Like this year’s Egyptian entry, Kyrgyzstan’s submission deals with a woman undertaking the Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca. In this case, the pilgrimage is led by the woman’s 35-year-old, intellectually disabled son, who believes his mother must complete the ritual if she is to join him in heaven after they die.
Trailer (no English subtitles)

Latvia: “Flow,” Gints Zilbalodis
Zilbalodis’s animated film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and was acquired by Sideshow and Janus Films at that festival. The movie takes place in the aftermath of an enormous flood, which forces a cat to team up with four other animals in search of a safe place to live. “Flow” won four awards at the Annecy festival in June, including the Audience Award and the Jury Award.
Trailer (no dialogue)

Lebanon: “Arzé,” Mira Shaib
Director Shaib says she set out to “reflect the heart of Lebanon” with this film about a single mother and her son searching Beirut for their stolen scooter. The dramedy meant to capture the resilience of the embattled country is the 20th Oscar submission for Lebanon, which has been nominated twice in the last eight years, for “The Insult” in 2017 and “Capernaum” in 2018.
Subtitled trailer

Lithuania: “Drowning Dry,” Laurynas Bareisa
A tragedy takes place during a weekend family getaway in Laurynas Bareisa’s drama, which premiered at this year’s Locarno Film Festival and won awards for director Bareisa and for the film’s ensemble cast. This is the second Lithuanian submission in the last three years to be directed by Laurynas Bareisa, with the first being the crime drama “Pilgrims” in 2002.
Subtitled trailer

Malaysia: “Abang Adik,” Jin Ong
The directorial debut of Jin Ong deals with two undocumented orphans, one deaf, who struggle to survive in a tough urban environment in Malaysia. Wu Kang-ren was named best actor at the Golden Horse Awards for Chinese-language cinema, and the film was a surprise hit, particularly in Taiwan.
Subtitled trailer

Malta: “Castillo,” Abigail Mallia
A woman uncovers a dark family history when she reunites with her long-estranged mother in this adaptation of the 2018 novel by Maltese writer Clare Azzopardi. The book was originally turned into a theatrical project by the film and TV production company Take//Two Malta, and then into a feature film. The drama is only the fourth Maltese submission, though one of the first three did not officially qualify.
Subtitled trailer

Mexico: “Sujo,” Astrid Rondero and Fernanda Valadez
Winner of the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, “Sujo” tells the story of the 4-year-old son of an assassinated Mexican cartel member who is taken to a remote mountain village to escape the life of violence that threatens to claim him. The film is the fifth Mexican submission directed by women in the last eight years.  
Subtitled film clip

Mongolia: “If Only I Could Hibernate,” Zoljargal Purvedas
The first Mongolian film to be part of the official selection in Cannes, “If Only I Could Hibernate” played in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section in 2023. Its central character is a teenager hoping to win a physics competition and escape his rough circumstances in the city of Ulaanbaatar. Mongolia has never been nominated for the international Oscar, though its first submission, 2003’s “The Story of the Weeping Camel,” was nominated in the Best Documentary Feature category.
Subtitled trailer

Montenegro: “Supermarket,” Nemanja Becanovic
The story of a man who hides in a supermarket warehouse during the day and emerges to help himself to all it offers once the store is closed for the night, “Supermarket” has a deadpan humor that could make it a rare Montenegrin cult film. The plot thickens when the stowaway begins to suspect that he’s not alone in the aisles.
Subtitled trailer

Morocco: “Everybody Loves Touda,” Nabil Ayouch
Writer-director Nabil Ayouch collaborated with his wife, Maryam Touzani, for this story about a young Moroccan woman (Nisrin Erradi) who dreams of becoming a successful folk singer in Casablanca. The film received strong reviews when it premiered in the Premiere section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Of the 20 films submitted by Morocco since 1977, Ayouch has directed six of them and Touzani has directed two, with the couple being responsible for five of the last eight entries.
Subtitled scene

Nepal: “Shambhala,” Min Bahadur Bham
A young woman’s journey through the Himalayas in search of one of her three husbands is the setting for “Shambhala,” which became the first Nepalese film to compete at a major film festival when it premiered in Berlin this year. Filming took place in the Upper Dolpo region of the Himalyas, one of the highest areas for human settlement at an elevation of more than 13,000 feet above sea level.
Subtitled trailer

Netherlands: “Memory Lane,” Jelle de Jonge
An elderly couple make a road trip across Europe in this comedy-drama from prolific Dutch TV director Jelle de Jonge. Leny Breederveld and Martin van Waardenberg play the couple whose 50-year relationship is tested on the car trip. The Netherlands was nominated seven times and won three Oscars between 1959 and 2003, but it hasn’t been nominated for the last 20 years.
Subtitled trailer

Nigeria: “Mai Martaba,” Prince Daniel
One of the most expensive films ever made in Nigeria, “Mai Martaba” is an historical epic set in an ancient African kingdom. It is only the fourth Nigerian film submitted to the Oscars, with one of the first three being disqualified.
Subtitled trailer

Norway: “Armand,” Halfdan Ullman Tondel
Set almost entirely inside a school where one child is accused of abusing another, “Armand” slips from a claustrophobic drama into a showpiece for a couple of remarkable scenes for actress Renata Reinsve (“The Worst Person in the World”). The film won raves at the Cannes Film Festival, where it screened in the Un Certain Regard section and won the Camera d’Or as the festival’s best debut feature. Halfdan Ullman Tondel Scandinavian cinematic royalty as the grandson of director Ingmar Bergman and actress Liv Ullman.
Subtitled trailer

Pakistan: “The Glassworker,” Usman Riaz
One of the few animated films in the international race, “The Glassworker” is a romantic drama set against a backdrop of war and inspired by the work of Hayao Miyazaki. The lead characters in his hand-drawn 2D film are a father and son who run a glass workshop that is threatened by an approaching war. It is the first animated submission from Pakistan, which has submitted 13 films between 1959 and the present, though nothing between 1964 and 2013.
Dubbed trailer

Palestine: “From Ground Zero,” Aws Al-Banna, Ahmed Al-Danf, Basil Al-Maqousi, Mustafa Al-Nabih, Muhammad Alshareef, Ala Ayob, Bashar Al Balbisi, Alaa Damo, Awad Hana, Ahmad Hassunah, Mustafa Kallab, Satoum Kareem, Mahdi Karera, Rabab Khamees, Khamees Masharawi, Wissam Moussa, Tamer Najm, Abu Hasna Nidaa, Damo Nidal, Mahmoud Reema, Etimad Weshah and Islam Al Zrieai
A blend of documentary, live-action and animated shorts, “From Ground Zero” consists of 22 short films directed by filmmakers who live in the Gaza Strip and have been filming there over the past year. Spearheaded by Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi, the film had an unofficial screening in Cannes and then played in the Amman, Taormina and Toronto film festivals.
Trailer (no dialogue)

Panama: “Wake Up Mom,” Arianne Benedetti
Arianne Benedetti wrote, produced and directed “Wake Up Mom,” and also stars in the thriller as a mother searching for her daughter, who has disappeared from the small mountain village where they moved. Panama has been submitting films since 2014 (with Benedetti also directing its 2017 entry, “Beyond Brotherhood”) and has made the shortlist once.
Trailer (no subtitles)

Paraguay: “The Last,” Sebastian Pena Escobar
This documentary takes a personal look at the big issue of climate change in the Gran Chaco region of Paraguay. Filmmaker Escobar travels to the region with a German entomologist and a Paraguayan ornithologist, with the film focusing on their philosophical and often amusing conversations about anything and everything.
Subtitled trailer

Peru: “Yana-Wara,” Oscar Catacora and Tito Catacora
Director Oscar Catacora died in late 2021 while filming this black-and-white movie, which was finished by his brother Tito Catacora. The psychological drama focuses on a man accused of murdering his 13-year-old granddaughter, whose story is revealed during the trial. As is common in Latin American cinema, there’s a supernatural element to the story that unfolds.
Trailer (no English subtitles)

Philippines: “And So It Begins,” Ramona S. Diaz
Filipino-American filmmaker Ramona S. Diaz has made a few documentaries about notable women in the Philippines, including the Imelda Marcos doc “Imelda” in 2003 and the Maria Ressa portrait “A Thousand Cuts” in 2017. “And So It Begins,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January, follows Leni Robredo’s run for president of the country in 2022.
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Poland: “Under the Volcano,” Damian Kocur
A Ukrainian family finds itself stuck in the Canary Islands when Russia invades Ukraine while they are on vacation in this drama co-written and directed by Damian Kocur, who said he wanted to contrast a family affected by war with others who just want to enjoy their vacations. The film premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

Portugal: “Grand Tour,” Miguel Gomes
Film critic-turned-director Miguel Gomes won the best director award at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for this period drama, which is set in Burma during the British colonial rule of that Southeast Asian country, now Myanmar. With 40 submissions and no nominations or appearances on the shortlist, Portugal holds the record for the most entries without a nom. “Grand Tour” marks the third time one of Gomes’ films has been the country’s submission.
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Romania : “Three Kilometres to the End of the World,”  Emanuel Parvu
A homophobic attack on the streets of a Romanian village sets things in motion in this slow-burn drama that won the Queer Palm at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Director Emmanuel Parvu is a former actor who worked with Romanian New Wave directors like Cristian Mungiu and Adrian Sitaru.
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Senegal: “Dahomey,” Mati Diop
Mati Diop, a French-born director and actress of French and Senegalese descent, made the Oscar shortlist and also won the Grand Prix in Cannes for her first film, 2019’s supernatural drama “Atlantics.” Her followup is a documentary about the West African kingdom of Dahomey, based around the 2021 transport of dozens of the kingdom’s plundered artifacts from Paris back to Africa.  
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Serbia: “Russian Consul,” Miroslav Lekic
Based on a bestselling novel by Vuk Draskovic, “Russian Consul” finds a Serbian psychiatrist (the late Zarko Lausevic, in his last role) exiled to Kosovo after the death of a patient; there, he meets an apparently deluded history professor who calls himself the Russian Consul. It’s been 22 years since a film by Miroslav Lekic represented Serbia in the Oscar race, with the director also responsible for the country’s 2002 submission “Labyrinth.”
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Singapore: “La Luna,” M. Raihan Halim
A young woman upsets the status quo in a conservative small town when she moves in and turns her grandfather’s house into a lingerie shop in this romantic comedy whose director says he’s been thinking about the idea for almost a decade. Singapore is one of the many Asian countries still looking for its first Oscar nomination.
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Slovakia: “The Hungarian Dressmaker,” Iveta Grofova
The tensions of World War II in the Nazi-controlled Slovak Republic are the backdrop for this story of a young widow who finds a Jewish boy hiding in the barn of her home in a town battered by wartime deportations. Alexandra Borbely, previously part of the Oscar race courtesy of the 2017 nominee ”On Body and Soul,” stars as the title character.
Trailer (no subtitles)

Slovenia: “Family Therapy,” Sonja Prosenc
This black comedy finds the arrival of a stranger upsetting the dynamic of a seemingly flawless upper-class family. Director Sonja Prosenc has made three feature films over the last 10 years, and all three have been chosen as Oscar submissions by Slovenia. No Slovenian film has ever been nominated.
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South Africa: “Old Righteous Blues,” Muneera Sallies
South Africa’s entry focuses on a young man tries to resolve a decades-long feud in a town where the celebrated Old Righteous Blues Christmas Choir Band has broken apart and been replaced by two warring bands. The country won the Oscar with “Tsotsi” almost 20 years ago but it looking for its first nomination since then.
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South Korea: “12.12: The Day,” Kim Sung-su
This is the second South Korean Oscar submission in the last five years to tell a fictional story set against the 1979 assassination of Park Chung Hee and the military coup that followed. Following its release in November 2023, the film became the top-grossing Korean film of the year and the fourth highest-crossing Korean film ever. South Korean films have been shortlisted three times and won once over the past seven years, always with thoughtful, auteur-driven films (“Burning,” “Decision to Leave” and the winner, “Parasite”); but the three more action-driven films it has released during that time have failed to advance in the race. 
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Spain: “Saturn Return,” Isaki Lacuesta and Pol Rodriguez
This film is about the making of the crucial third album by Granada-based indie rock band Los Planetas, but it fictionalizes events from the group’s history rather than sticking to the real story. An opening title tells viewers: “This is not a film about Los Planetas. This is a film about the legend of Los Planetas.”
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Sweden: “The Last Journey,” Filip Hammar and Fredrik Wikingsson
The most-viewed documentary ever in Sweden, “The Last Journey” follows its two directors on a trip to France during which they’re joined by Filip Hammar’s father, Lars Hammar, a retired schoolteacher who has fallen into depression. The film is the first documentary to be submitted by Sweden since “A Respectable Life” in 1979, and only the second in 68 years of Swedish submissions.
Trailer (no English subtitles)

Switzerland: “Queens,” Klaudia Reynicke
This Swiss-Spanish-Peruvian coproduction is set in Peru during the early 1990s, and focuses on two young girls who are planning to leave the strife-ridden country at the same time that they’re growing closer to their father, who has come back in their lives after a long absence. The film premiered at Sundance and won the Generation Kplus Grand Prix in Berlin. Though Switzerland has made the shortlist three times in this century, it is looking for its first nomination since “Journey of Hope” won the international Oscar in 1994.
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Taiwan: “Old Fox,” Hsiao Ya-chuan
Set in 1989, this drama from “Mirror Image” director Hsiao Ya-chuan centers on a single father trying to save money to buy a house and his pre-teen son who falls under the influence of a corrupt landlord. The film premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival in October 2023 and had a theatrical release in November of that year.
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Tajikistan: “Melody,” Behrous Sebt Rasoul
Last year, Tajikistan submitted this drama about a young music teacher who wants to use the songs of birds to compose a work for children with cancer. The film was deemed ineligible because it missed the submission deadline, so the country has resubmitted it for this year’s race.
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Thailand: “How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies,” Pat Boonnitipa
The title of this Thai film is also its plot, because its lead character is a destitute dropout who offers to take care of his terminally ill grandmother in the hopes that she’ll leave him her money. The film was a box-office hit in Asia and started a social-media trend in which people would post videos of themselves crying after watching it. Thailand has submitted 31 films since 1984 and is still waiting for its first nomination.
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Tunisia: “Take My Breath,” Nada Mazni Hafaiedh
A year after Tunisia’s entry, “Four Daughters,” was shortlisted in the international category and nominated in the documentary category, the country has submitted a drama about an intersex seamstress who must leave their small town when their identity is revealed.
Subtitled trailer

Turkey: “Life,” Zeki Demirkubuz
This three-hour-plus drama from a director known for his rigorous, minimalist style follows a young woman fleeing an arranged marriage and a man who goes to Istanbul to search for his  missing fiancé. Despite the presence of six entries from master auteur Nuri Bilge Ceylan, no Turkish submission has ever been nominated.  
Subtitled trailer

Ukraine: “La Palisiada,” Philip Sotnychenko
A police detective and a forensic psychiatrist look into the murder of a colleague in his drama set in 1996, in a period just prior to the abolition of the death penalty in Ukraine. Ukraine is still looking for its first nomination, though it made the international shortlist last year with “20 Days in Mariupol,” which was nominated and won in the Best Documentary Feature category.
Subtitled trailer

United Kingdom: “Santosh,” Sandhya Suri
A year after winning its first international Oscar for “The Zone of Interest,” the U.K. has chosen this Hindi-language crime drama from a British-born director of Indian descent. Shahana Goswami plays the title character, a widow who takes her late husband’s job as a police officer and investigates the  murder of a young girl. The film, which premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, is the first British submission to be set in India.
Subtitled trailer

Venezuela: “Vuelve a la vida,” Luis Carlo Hueck and Alfredo Hueck
A film based on a life-changing event in the childhood of its co-directors, brothers Luis Carlos and Alfredo Hueck, “Vuelve a la Vida” is set in 1996 and deals with a young man fighting a serious illness. Venezuela initially submitted “Children of Las Brisas,” a documentary that did not meet Oscar eligibility requirements because it was shown on a streaming platform (and on PBS’s Independent Lens) before its theatrical release.
Trailer (no subtitles)

Vietnam: “Peach Blossom, Pho and Piano,” Phi Tien Son
Vietnam’s submission is a war film that goes back much further than what U.S. viewers think of as the Vietnam War: It takes place in 1947 and deals with a young couple who are separated during the Battle of Hanoi, which began the First Indochina War. Vietnam was nominated for its first-ever Oscar submission, 1993’s “The Scent of Green Papaya,” but has not been nominated since then.
Trailer (no subtitles)

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Five of the 15 winning films come from international film schools in India, Japan, France, Czech Republic and Germany, while the remainder come from film schools in the U.S., including USC, NYU, Chapman, Brigham Young University, Brown, the School of Visual Arts and San Francisco State University.

Three of the international schools — the National Institute of Design in India, Digital Hollywood University in Japan and Filmová Akademie Miroslava Ondříčka v Písku in the Czech Republic — are winning Student Academy Awards for the first time.

Unusually, no film school received more than one award.

Winners were selected from a pool of 2,683 entries from 738 colleges and universities worldwide. Previous Student Academy Award winners include Patricia Cardoso, Pete Docter, Spike Lee, Patricia Riggen and Robert Zemeckis.

The winning films are eligible to compete for the Academy Awards in the Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film or Documentary Short Film category. Past winners have received 67 Oscar nominations and won 15 awards.

It was previously announced that this year’s presentation ceremony, usually held at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills, will take place at the ODEON Luxe Leicester Square in London on Monday, Oct. 14 at 7 p.m. BEST, in partnership with Rolex. Gold, silver and bronze placements in each of the four categories will be announced at the ceremony.

The Student Academy Awards were founded in 1972 to provide a platform for rising talent by creating opportunities to showcase their work.

This year’s Student Academy Awards winners are below, listed alphabetically by category.

Alternative/Experimental
Akshit Kumar, “bonVoyage pour monVoyage,” National Institute of Design, India
Birdy Wei-Ting Hung, “A Brighter Summer Day for the Lady Avengers,” San Francisco State University 
Dori Walker, “In Living Memory,” Brown University

Animation
Florian Maurice, Maxime Foltzer & Estelle Bonnardel, “Au Revoir Mon Monde,” MoPA 3D Animation School, France
Kei Kanamori, “Origami,” Digital Hollywood University, Japan
Spencer Baird, “Student Accomplice,” Brigham Young University

Documentary
Rishabh Raj Jain, “A Dream Called Khushi (Happiness),” New York University
Hannah Rafkin, “Keeper,” School of Visual Arts 
Aaron Johnson, “The 17%,” Chapman University 

Narrative
Pavel Sýkora & Viktor Horák, “The Compatriot,” Filmová Akademie Miroslava Ondříčka v Písku, Czech Republic
Jens Kevin Georg, “Crust,” Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF, Germany
Robin Wang, “Neither Donkey nor Horse,” University of Southern California

The post USC, NYU and Chapman Are Among 2024 Student Academy Awards Winners appeared first on TheWrap.

In the past, I would have answered that question by saying, “No, but in about three weeks I will.” That’s because the end of August brings the beginning of the three fall film festivals that for decades have been the most fruitful ground for premiering Academy Award winners and nominees.

For 14 years between 2007 and 2020, from “No Country for Old Men” to “Nomadland,” the Oscar Best Picture winner screened (and in all but three cases premiered) at the Venice International Film Festival, the Telluride Film Festival or the Toronto International Film Festival, and in many cases in more than one of those festivals. And for most of that time, the majority of Best Picture nominees came out of the Venice-Telluride-Toronto axis.

But then things changed. The 2021 winner, for the first time ever, was a Sundance movie, “CODA.” The following year, “Everything Everywhere All at Once” premiered at SXSW on its way to Oscar glory. And last year, “Oppenheimer” went straight to theaters without any film-festival launching pad.

In fact, over the last three years, fewer than half the Best Picture nominees have come through the fall showcases, with Venice topping those fests with six nominees, the same as May’s Cannes Film Festival. Telluride supplied the premieres of four movies that received nominations while Toronto brought three – and no single festival topped the seven nominees that didn’t have any festival premieres.

The festivals have a chance to reclaim their awards-season primacy beginning this week, with Venice kicking off on Wednesday with the world premiere of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Telluride following on Friday with three days of yet-unannounced contenders and Toronto beginning Thursday, Sept. 5 with David Gordon Green’s “Nutcrackers.”

They’ll come into a field that isn’t exactly bursting with Best Picture contenders. Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part 2,” the sequel to the 2021 film that was nominated for 10 Oscars and won six, is the closest thing to a likely nominee, though Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man,” Jeff Nichols’ “The Bikeriders” and Greg Kwedar’s “Sing Sing” are more than worthy of  awards attention. And the Cannes Film Festival brought a few more real contenders, including Sean Baker’s “Anora,” Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Perez” and some longer shots like Mohammad Rasoulof’s “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” and Ali Abbasi’s Donald Trump origin story “The Apprentice.”    

But while six of last year’s 10 best-pic nominees had already been seen by the public or by festival audiences at this time last year, it seems unlikely that that many will do so this year. And that leaves the awards race open to these festival offerings.

Venice

The oldest of the fall festivals had little overlap with the Oscars for most of its existence: Between 1949 and 2016, the only winners of Venice’s Golden Lion award that went on to receive Oscar Best Picture nominations were 1980’s “Atlantic City” and 2005’s “Brokeback Mountain.” But over the last seven years, five of the Golden Lion winners have also been Oscar nominees, and two of them – “The Shape of Water” in 2017 and “Nomadland” in 2020 – were Best Picture winners.

This year, Venice is surprisingly long on mainstream movies: Tim Burton’s sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” is opening the festival, Todd Phillips’ musical sequel “Joker: Folie a Deux” is one of the most anticipated titles (and the followup to a Golden Lion winner that was embraced by the Academy) and Jon Watts’ “Wolfs” will bring the formidable team of George Clooney and Brad Pitt to the Lido.

Venice films that could be bigger with critics and voters than with multiplex audiences include Pedro Almodovar’s first English-language drama, “The Room Next Door” with Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton; Pablo Larrain’s “Maria,” with Angelina Jolie as opera diva Maria Callas; Dutch director Halina Reijn’s erotic thriller “Babygirl,” with Nicole Kidman; and Luca Guadagnino’s William S. Burroughs adaptation “Queer,” starring Daniel Craig. Australian director Justin Kurzel and American indie stalwart Brady Corbet have to be fully embraced by U.S. awards voters, but both will be in Venice with dramas based on real events: Kurzel’s “The Order” features Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult and Tye Sheridan in the story of a Neo-Nazi group in the early 1980s, while Corbet’s “The Brutalist” stars Adrien Brody as Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor László Tóth.  

Telluride

The Telluride Film Festival doesn’t announce its lineup until the day before it begins, upholding its longstanding tradition of asking audiences to trust the festival’s taste by heading to the Colorado mountain town without knowing what they’re going to see. But it’s no secret what many of the biggest titles in Telluride will be: If a movie isn’t playing in Venice and its Toronto Film Festival billing calls it an International Premiere or Canadian premiere, it’s often headed for the shortest and most low-key of the three festivals.

This year, that means the marquee premieres in Telluride, and the films that will likely warrant attention from awards bodies, include “Conclave,” a drama about intrigue during the selection of a new pope that stars Ralph Fiennes, Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rossellini and comes from German director Edward Berger, whose last film, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” received nine nominations and won four Oscars in 2023.  

“The Piano Lesson” will also come to Telluride with considerable pedigree: It’s another adaptation of a play by August Wilson coming on the heels of “Fences” and “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” and it stars Samuel L. Jackson and John David Washington, the latter of whom is working with his brother Malcolm, who directed, and his father Denzel, who produced.

And Telluride regular Jason Reitman will debut his film “Saturday Night,” which details the creation of the first episode of “Saturday Night Live” just in time for that iconic show’s 50th season. Gabriel LaBelle, who last hit the festival circuit with Steven Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans,” plays “SNL” producer Lorne Michaels as part of a large ensemble cast in which lesser-known actors portray the Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time Players and Nicholas Braun, Willem Dafoe and J.K. Simmons pop up in smaller roles.

Also likely in Telluride: RaMell Ross’s Colson Whitehead adaptation “Nickel Boys”; “The Act of Killing” director Joshua Oppenheimer’s narrative debut, “The End,” with Tilda Swinton and Michael Shannon; and David Siegel and Scott McGehee’s “The Friend,” starring Naomi Watts as a writer who inherits a very large dog after the death of a friend and mentor.

Toronto

By far the largest of the three festivals, with significantly more films than Venice and Telluride put together, the Toronto International Film Festival will screen many of the films that previously went to the other two festivals. But especially during its first four days, it’ll have a variety of films that could make noise during awards season.

TIFF hasn’t had an opening-night film land a Best Picture nomination since “The Big Chill” in 1983, a streak that David Gordon Green will try to end this year with “Nutcrackers,” a comedy starring and produced by Ben Stiller. Other notable films premiering in Toronto include Edward Burns’ “Millers in Marriage,” starring Gretchen Mol and Julianna Margulies; “We Live in Time,” a romance starring Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield and directed by John Crowley (“Brooklyn’”); Marielle Heller’s “Nightbitch,” with Amy Adams, about a woman whose domestic life slips into surrealism; Ron Howard’s “Eden,” a survival thriller starring Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Bruhl and Sydney Sweeney; and “Hard Truths,” a drama from acclaimed British director Mike Leigh that stars Marianne-Jean Baptiste, who also played the lead role in Leigh’s 1996 Best Picture nominee “Secrets & Lies.”

Other TIFF titles include “The Return,” Uberto Pasolini’s adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey” starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche; “Without Blood,” a war film directed by Angelina Jolie and starring Salma Hayek Pinault and Demian Bichir; and “William Tell,” a large-scale adaptation of the story of the Swiss folk hero starring Claes Bang and directed by Nick Hamm.

Those lists just scratch the surface – and if history is any guide, by mid September most of those films will have been written off as true awards contenders while a handful will enter the conversation. The New York Film Festival will show its own slate in late September into October, though its world premieres will be scarce. And then the final batch of possible contenders will drop as voting windows open; those will include Steve McQueen’s World War II movie “Blitz” (premiering at the London Film Festival on Oct. 9), James Mangold’s Bob Dylan story “A Complete Unknown” and Ridley Scott’s  “Gladiator II,” the sequel to his 2000 Best Picture winner.

By the time the dust clears and the ballots are counted, some of the fall festivals may have beefed up their reputations as awards-season launching pads, while others may find that they still haven’t regained their mojo. In truth, the success of a film festival doesn’t depend on how many of its movies are embraced by awards voters. Venice, Telluride and Toronto could be great experiences for filmmakers and audiences even if Oscar voters ignore all their movies six months from now.

But let’s face it: The festivals want those bragging rights.

So here we go.

The post Fall Film Festivals Struggle to Regain Their Mojo as Awards Season Launching Pads appeared first on TheWrap.

Yang was elected to her third one-year term as president by the Academy’s Board of Governors, which also elected five vice presidents: Lesley Barber, DeVon Franklin, Donna Gigliotti, Lynette Howell Taylor and Howard A. Rodman.  

A member of the Academy’s Producers Branch, Yang was nominated as a Governor-at-Large by then-Academy President John Bailey in 2019 and re-nominated by AMPAS President David Rubin in 2022. Her films include “The Joy Luck Club,” “The People vs. Larry Flynt,” “South Central” and “Over the Moon.”

“I am thrilled to have Janet return as Academy President for a third term to continue our great work of the past two years,” said Academy CEO Bill Kramer in a statement. “I look forward to collaborating with our officers and governors to advance the Academy’s mission, serve our global membership, celebrate the work of our international filmmaking community, continue to ensure the financial health of the Academy and broaden our reach and impact within the industry.”

Academy presidents are allowed serve up to four consecutive one-year terms, but Yang will not be eligible for a fourth term next year. She is in her sixth year as a Governor-at-Large, the maximum a governor can serve before leaving the board for a two-year hiatus.

Of the five vice presidents, only Lesley Barber is a first-time Academy officer. DeVon Franklin, Lynette Howell Taylor and Howard A. Rodman were re-elected to their vice president positions, while Donna Gigliotti is returning to be an officer after previously serving as one. The total number of AMPAS vice presidents was reduced from eight to five, with additional responsibilities transitioning to the Academy Foundation Board.

The AMPAS officers:
Lesley Barber, Vice President (chair, Membership Committee)
DeVon Franklin, Vice President (chair, Equity and Inclusion Committee)
Donna Gigliotti, Vice President/Treasurer (chair, Finance Committee)
Lynette Howell Taylor, Vice President (chair, Awards Committee)
Howard A. Rodman, Vice President/Secretary (chair, Governance Committee)

The post Janet Yang Re-Elected Motion Picture Academy President for 3rd Term appeared first on TheWrap.

The list of prospective new members, which is the largest group to be invited in four years, contains a number of other 2024 Oscar nominees as well: among them are actresses Danielle Brooks, Lily Gladstone and Sandra Hüller; composer Jerskin Fendrix; producers Ben LeClair and James Wilson; writers Samy Burch, David Hemingson and Tony McNamara; and writer-director Celine Song.

Jefferson, Song and Triet were all invited to join both the directors branch and the writers branch, and must choose one branch if they accept the Academy’s invitation. Others invited by multiple branches were Michael Andrews (film editors/short films and feature animation), Bahrām Beyzāêi (directors/writers), İlker Çatak (directors/writers), Nadim Cheikhrouha (documentaries/producers) and Christine Turner (documentaries/short films and feature animation).

Invitations also went out to actors Jessica Alba, Jason Clarke, Greta Lee, Kate Mara, Stephanie Beatriz, Erika Alexander and Catherine O’Hara; directors Boots Riley, David Yates and S.S. Rajamouli; documentary filmmakers Sergei Loznitsa, Nisha Pahuja and Frédéric Tcheng; writers Kogonada and Erica Tremblay; and artists representatives Linda Lichter and Douglas Urbanski.

According to the Academy, 44% of the invitations went to individuals who identify as women and 41% went to people from underrepresented ethnic and racial communities. More than half went to people living outside the United States.

Each branch of the Academy has its own requirements for membership, though those requirements can be waived for Oscar nominees or winners. Committees from each branch review potential members and make their recommendations to the Board of Governors, which has the final say on which candidates are invited to join.

By inviting nearly 500 new members this year, the board broke a three-year streak of keeping the list of invitees to just below 400. The last three years had seen 395 invites in 2021, 397 in 2022 and 398 in 2023.

For years, the Academy kept the total number of members below 6,000 and limited the ability of branches to admit more new members than they lost through death or retirement. Those limits were removed in the mid-2010s, leading to three years of around 300 invitations between 2013 and ’15. After the #OscarsSoWhite protests of 2016 and the revelation that AMPAS members were 75% male and 90% white, the Academy embarked on a five-year drive to double the number of women and members of color.

That led to 683 invitations in 2016, followed by 774 in 2017, 928 in 2018, 842 in 2019 and 819 in 2020, with a particular emphasis on new members who lived and worked outside the United States.

The Academy is now about 80% larger than it was in 2010, and almost 60% bigger than it was before the 2016 membership drive began.

Notably, the Academy doesn’t reveal how many people decline their invitations to join, though anecdotal evidence suggests that a vast majority of them accept. AMPAS had 9,797 voting members for the last Oscars season, which means that a strong acceptance rate in this year’s class should bring the number of voters very close to 10,000.

This year’s invitees are listed below:

Actors
Jessica Alba – “Machete,” “Frank Miller’s Sin City”
Erika Alexander – “American Fiction,” “30 Years to Life”
Swann Arlaud – “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Bloody Milk”
Shabana Azmi – “Godmother,” “Arth”
Obba Babatunde – “City of Lies,” “The Manchurian Candidate”
Saleh Bakri – “The Blue Caftan,” “The Band’s Visit”
Stephanie Beatriz – “Encanto,” “In the Heights”
Danielle Brooks – “The Color Purple,” Clemency”
Tia Carrere – “True Lies,” “Wayne’s World”
Sergio Castellitto – “Don’t Move,” “My Mother’s Smile”
Alfredo Castro – “El Conde,” “Tony Manero”
Jason Clarke – “Oppenheimer,” “Zero Dark Thirty”
Kate Del Castillo – “Under the Same Moon,” “American Visa”
Gang Dong-won – “Broker,” “Peninsula”
Lily Gladstone – “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “The Unknown Country”
Rachel House – “Hunt for the Wilderpeople,” “Boy”
Sandra Hüller – “Anatomy of a Fall,” “The Zone of Interest”
Maeve Jinkings – “Toll,” “Neon Bull”
Greta Lee – “Past Lives,” “Gemini”
Kate Mara – “Megan Leavey,” “The Martian”
Dash Mihok – “Silver Linings Playbook,” “The Thin Red Line”
Catherine O’Hara – “For Your Consideration,” “Best in Show”
Da’Vine Joy Randolph – “The Holdovers,” “Dolemite Is My Name”
Fiona Shaw – “The Last September,” “The Butcher Boy”
Qi Shu – “The Assassin,” “Three Times”
D.B. Sweeney – “Dinosaur,” “Eight Men Out”
Jasmine Trinca – “Fortunata,” “Honey”
Koji Yakusho – “Perfect Days,” “The Blood of Wolves”
Teo Yoo – “Past Lives,” “Vertigo”

Casting Directors
Dixie Chassay – “Dune: Part Two,” “Poor Things”
Kharmel Cochrane – “Saltburn,” “The Northman”
Angela Demo – “Cha Cha Real Smooth,” “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl”
Jennifer Euston – “American Fiction,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World”
Rene Haynes – “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “The Revenant”
Gayle Keller – “Bros,” “The King of Staten Island”
Moira Miller – “A Fantastic Woman,” “The Green Inferno”
Masunobu Motokawa – “Perfect Days,” “The Wandering Moon”
Ulrike Müller – “Ghost Trail,” “Scorched Earth”
Elsa Pharaon – “A Silence,” “Holy Motors”
Alejandro Reza – “Noche de Bodas,” “Gringo”
Luis Rosales – “Cassandro,” “Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths”
Limor Shmila – “The Vanishing Soldier,” “The Stronghold”
Rebecca van Unen – “Sweet Dreams,” “Quo Vadis, Aida?”
Chamutal Zerem – “Karaoke,” “Foxtrot”

Cinematographers
Eric Branco – “Story Ave,” “The Forty-Year-Old Version”
Chananun Chotrungroj – “Birth/Rebirth,” “The Trapped 13: How We Survived the Thai Cave”
Matthew Chuang – “You Won’t Be Alone,” “Blue Bayou”
Andrew Commis – “Blueback,” “Babyteeth”
Ashley Connor – “Polite Society,” “The Miseducation of Cameron Post”
Josée Deshaies – “The Beast,” “Passages”
Alex Disenhof – “Alice,” “Captive State”
Jomo Fray – “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” “Port Authority”
Damián García – “Jungleland,” “I’m No Longer Here”
Magdalena Górka – “Die in a Gunfight,” “An Ordinary Man”
Ryuto Kondo – “Monster,” “A Man”
Dariela Ludlow Deloya – “A Million Miles Away,” “Prayers for the Stolen”
Catherine Lutes – “Close to You,” “Mouthpiece”
Aurélien Marra – “L’Homme Debout,” “Two of Us”
Igor Meglic – “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” “Fast X”
Crescenzo Giacomo Notarile – “Bullet,” “Moonwalker”
Sophia Olsson – “Charter,” “Echo”
Yerkinbek Ptyraliyev – “Yellow Cat,” “Karinca”
Jamie Ramsay – “All of Us Strangers,” “Living”
Nanu Segal – “Emily,” “Donkey Punch”
Hidetoshi Shinomiya – “Drive My Car,” “The Town of Headcounts”
Jigme Tenzing – “The Monk and the Gun,” “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom”
Ravi Varman – “Japan,” “Ponniyin Selvan: Part Two”
Maria von Hausswolff – “Godland,” “A White, White Day”
Sophie Winqvist – “Clara Sola,” “Pleasure”

Costume Designers
Dave Crossman – “Napoleon,” “1917”
Mario D’Avignon – “Midway,” “Hochelaga, Land of Souls”
Anne Dixon – “The Marsh King’s Daughter,” “The Song of Names”
Jürgen Doering – “Personal Shopper,” “Clouds of Sils Maria” 
Leesa Evans – “Always Be My Maybe,” “Bridesmaids”
Gabriela Fernández – “I’m No Longer Here,” “Cantinflas”
Małgorzata Karpiuk – “The Zone of Interest,” “Quo Vadis, Aida?”
Kazuko Kurosawa – “Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai,” “Silk”
Ann Maskrey – “The Man Who Knew Infinity,” “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug”
Mona May – “Enchanted,” “Clueless”
Rama Rajamouli – “RRR,” “Baahubali: The Beginning”
Sheetal Sharma – “Gangubai Kathiawadi,” “Kesari”
Preeyanan “Lin” Suwannathada – “The Creator,” “Buffalo Boys”
Jill Taylor – “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” “My Week with Marilyn”
Mónica Toschi – “A Ravaging Wind,” “Argentina, 1985”
Holly Waddington – “Poor Things,” “Lady Macbeth”
Khadija Zeggaï – “Passages,” “Love Crime”

Directors
Fede Álvarez – “The Girl in the Spider’s Web,” “Don’t Breathe”
Kyle Patrick Alvarez – “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” “C.O.G.”
Lila Avilés – “Totem,” “The Chambermaid”
Jamie Babbit – “The Stand-In,” “But I’m a Cheerleader”
Minhal Baig – “We Grown Now,” “Hala”
Bahrām Beyzāêi* – “When We Are All Asleep,” “Killing Mad Dogs”
Jayro Bustamente – “La Llorona,” “Tremors”
Steven Caple Jr. – “Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,” “Creed II”
İlker Çatak* – “The Teachers’ Lounge,” “I Was, I Am, I Will Be”
Ayoka Chenzira – “Alma’s Rainbow”
Justin Chon – “Blue Bayou,” “Ms. Purple”
Rima Das – “Tora’s Husband,” “Village Rockstars”
JD Dillard – “Devotion,” “Sweetheart”
Alice Diop – “Saint Omer,” “We”
Sally El Hosaini – “Unicorns,” “The Swimmers”
Leslie Harris – “Just Another Girl on the I.R.T.”
Cord Jefferson* – “American Fiction”
S.S. Rajamouli – “RRR,” “Eega”
Boots Riley – “Sorry to Bother You”
Alex Rivera – “The Infiltrators,” “Sleep Dealer”
A.V. Rockwell – “A Thousand and One”
Juliana Rojas – “Good Manners,” “Necropolis Symphony”
Emma Seligman – “Bottoms,” “Shiva Baby”
Celine Song* – “Past Lives”
Angel Manuel Soto – “Blue Beetle,” “Charm City Kings”
Justine Triet* – “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Sibyl”
Anand Kumar Tucker – “The Critic,” “Leap Year”
David Yates – “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix”
Susan Youssef – “Marjoun and the Flying Headscarf,” “Habibi Rasak Kharban”

Documentary
Trish Adlesic – “The ABCs of Book Banning,” “Gasland”
Daniela Alatorre – “A Cop Movie,” “Midnight Family”
Waad Al-Kateab – “We Dare to Dream,” “For Sama”
Anne Alvergue – “The Martha Mitchell Effect,” “Bully. Coward. Victim. The Story of Roy Cohn”
Raed Andoni – “Ghost Hunting,” “Fix Me”
Alethea Arnaquq-Baril – “Twice Colonized,” “Angry Inuk”
Mila Aung-Thwin – “Let There Be Light,” “Last Train Home”
Tina Baz – “Adolescents,” “Fix Me”
Jorge Bodanzky – “The Amazon, a New Minamata?,” “Third Millennium”
Moses Bwayo – “Bobi Wine: The People’s President”
Caryn Capotosto – “Little Richard: I Am Everything,” “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
Nadim Cheikhrouha* – “Four Daughters,” “Benda Bilili!”
Mstyslav Chernov – “20 Days in Mariupol”
Michael Collins – “Almost Sunrise,” “Give Up Tomorrow”
Flávia de Souza – “Aftershock,” “Open Heart”
Jeanie Finlay – “Your Fat Friend,” “Seahorse: The Dad Who Gave Birth”
Beadie Finzi – “Only When I Dance,” “Unknown White Male”
Ellen Goosenberg Kent – “Torn Apart: Separated at the Border,” “Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1”
Sky Hopinka – “Kicking the Clouds,” “Malni: Towards the Ocean, towards the Shore”
José Joffily – “A Symphony for a Common Man,” “Foreign Soldier”
Rachel Lears – “To the End,” “Knock Down the House”
Rebecca Lichtenfeld – “The Eternal Memory,” “The Nightcrawlers”
Sergei Loznitsa – “Babi Yar. Context,” “Mr. Landsbergis”
Aïcha Macky – “Zinder,” “The Fruitless Tree”
Kara Magsanoc-Alikpala – “Delikado,” “Call Her Ganda”
Elaine McMillion Sheldon – “King Coal,” “Heroin(e)”
Mark Mitten – “A Compassionate Spy,” “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail”
Vincent Moloi – “Skulls of My People,” “Men of Gold”
Nisha Pahuja – “To Kill a Tiger,” “The World before Her”
Pola Rapaport – “Addicted to Life,” “Broken Meat”
RaMell Ross – “Easter Snap,” “Hale County This Morning, This Evening”
Ousmane Samassekou – “The Last Shelter,” “The Heirs of the Hill”
Frédéric Tcheng – “Invisible Beauty,” “Halston”
Jennifer Tiexiera – “Subject,” “P.S. Burn This Letter Please”
Hemal Trivedi – “Among the Believers,” “Saving Face”
Christine Turner* – “The Barber of Little Rock,” “Lynching Postcards: “Token of a Great Day””
Keith Wilson – “Joonam,” “I Didn’t See You There”

Executives
Salma Abdalla
Cate Adams
Maya Amsellem
Lenora del Pilar Ferrero Blanco
Sasha Bühler
Michelle Byrd
Elaine Chin
Duncan Crabtree-Ireland
Paolo Del Brocco
Gina Duncan
Dan Friedkin
Poppy Hanks
Kate Hurwitz
Iris Knobloch
Tim League
Sasha Lloyd
Harvey Mason Jr.
Daniela Michel
Brittany Morrissey
Brianna Oh
Lejo Pet
Areli Quirarte
Matthew Reilly
Chris Rice
Ben Roberts
Peter Safran
Couper Samuelson
Ellen Stutzman
Fumiko Takagi
Graham Taylor
Emily Woodburne
Kim Yutani

Film Editors
Timothy Alverson – “Halloween,” “Orphan”
Michael Andrews* – “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Shrek 2”
Qutaiba Barhamji – “Four Daughters,” “Smoke Sauna Sisterhood”
Joseph Charles Bond – “Wildflower,” “The Man Who Knew Infinity”
Victoria Boydell – “Saltburn,” “Rye Lane”
Paul Carlin – “Bobi Wine: The People’s President,” “The Mystery of D.B. Cooper”
Carlotta Cristiani – “The Inner Cage,” “Daughter of Mine”
Cătălin Cristuțiu – “Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World,” “Poppy Field”
Annette Davey – “Dreamin’ Wild,” “Together, Together”
Amy Foote – “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed,” “The Work”
Keith Fraase – “Past Lives,” “To the Wonder”
Jo Francis – “Memory,” “Charming the Hearts of Men”
Toni Froschhammer – “Perfect Days,” “Pina”
Nassim Gordji-Tehrani – “Rosalie,” “The Wolf’s Call”
Kaya Inan – “My Wonderful Wanda,” “In the Aisles”
Lisa Lassek – “Leave the World Behind,” “Marvel’s The Avengers”
Jaume Martí – “Society of the Snow,” “God’s Crooked Lines”
Rie Matsubara – “The Boy and the Heron,” “When Marnie Was There”
Mike Munn – “To Kill a Tiger,” “This Is Not a Movie”
Darrin Navarro – “Summering,” “Tallulah”
Mdhamiri Nkemi – “Blue Story,” “The Last Tree”
Hilda Rasula – “American Fiction,” “Vengeance”
Josh Schaeffer – “Godzilla vs. Kong,” “Molly’s Game”
Laurent Sénéchal – “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle”
Takeshi Seyama – “The Boy and the Heron,” “Spirited Away”
Michelle Tesoro – “Maestro,” “On the Basis of Sex”

Makeup Artists and Hairstylists
Ana Bulajić Črček – “Illyricvm,” “Number 55”
Hildegard Haide – “Run to Ground,” “Extinction”
Karen Hartley Thomas – “Golda,” “The Personal History of David Copperfield”
Frédéric Lainé – “The Animal Kingdom,” “Benedetta”

Marketing and Public Relations
Michele Abitbol-Lasry
Matt Johnson Apice
Austin Barker
Neil Bhatt
Darnell Brisco
Nasim Cambron
Holly Connors
Mauricio Azael Duran Ortega
Stephen Garrett
Christopher Gonzalez
Andrea Grau
Blair Green
Carlos Alberto Gutiérrez
Lisa Zaks Markowitz
David Ninh
Julien Noble
Gitesh Pandya
Michelle Paris
Elaine Patterson
Lonnie Snell
Ray Subers
Caren Quinn Thompson
Jessica Thurber Hemingway
Vilija Vitartas
Stephanie Wenborn

Music
Michael K. Bauer – “Cassandro,” “The Equalizer 3”
Stephen Bray – “The Color Purple,” “Psycho III”
Anthony Chue – “Man on the Edge,” “G Storm”
Gary M. Clark – “Flora and Son,” “Sing Street”
Marius de Vries – “Navalny,” “CODA”
Jerskin Fendrix – “Poor Things”
Simon Franglen – “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “The Magnificent Seven”
Jo Yeong-wook – “Decision to Leave,” “Hunt”
Shari Johanson – “Maybe I Do,” “All Together Now”
Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch – “All of Us Strangers,” “Living”
Fabrizio Mancinelli – “Il Viaggio Leggendario,” “The Boat”
Diego Navarro – “The Cuckoo’s Curse,” “The Wasteland”
Martin Phipps – “Napoleon,” “The Princess”
Plínio Profeta – “Desapega!,” “Nosso Sonho”
Philippe Rombi – “Driving Madeleine,” “Joyeux Noël”
David Sardy – “The Beekeeper,” “Zombieland”
Katrina Marie Schiller – “Wonka,” “Black Mass”
Carl Sealove – “Gabby Giffords Won’t Back Down,” “The Human Trial”
Ryan Shore – “Veselka: The Rainbow on the Corner at the Center of the World,” “Zombie Town”
Kubilay Uner – “American Traitor: The Trail of Axis Sally,” “Force of Nature”
Dan Wilson – “American Symphony,” “Love Again”

Producers
Tom Ackerley – “Barbie,” “I, Tonya”
Nadim Cheikhrouha* – “Four Daughters,” “The Man Who Sold His Skin”
Jay Choi – “The Good the Bad the Weird,” “A Tale of Two Sisters”
Jennifer Davisson – “Robin Hood,” “Live by Night”
Fernanda De la Peza – “The Hole in the Fence,” “Robe of Gems”
Simón de Santiago – “Regression,” “Agora”
Diana Elbaum – “Hounds,” “Isn’t She Lovely?”
Saïd Hamich Benlarbi – “Deserts,” “Return to Bollene”
Alex Heineman – “Gunpowder Milkshake,” “The Commuter”
Sandra Hermida – “Society of the Snow,” “Un Amor”
John M. Jacobsen – “Trollhunter,” “Max Manus”
David Koplan – “Spirited,” “Papillon”
Ben LeClair – “American Fiction,” “Fair Play”
Tatiana Leite – “Rule 34,” “Loveling”
Agustina Llambí Campbell – “Argentina, 1985,” “The Wild Ones”
Andrew Lowe – “Poor Things,” “Chevalier”
Renata de Almeida Magalhães – “The Great Mystical Circus,” “The Greatest Love of All”
Kaoru Matsuzaki – “Shoplifters,” “Like Father, Like Son”
Kelly McCormick – “Bullet Train,” “Violent Night”
Sarah Schechter – “My Policeman,” “Free Guy”
Ritesh Sidhwani – “Gully Boy,” “Dil Chahta Hai”
Leslie Urdang – “Rabbit Hole,” “Adam”
Edward Vaisman – “The American Society of Magical Negroes,” “A Thousand and One”
James Wilson – “The Zone of Interest,” “Under the Skin”
María Zamora – “The Rye Horn,” “Alcarràs”

Production and Technology
Deva Anderson
Keir Beck
Nicholas Bergh
Geoff Burdick
Larry Chernoff
Man-Nang Chong
George Cottle
Eddie Drake
Shauna Duggins
Jonathan Eusebio
Clay Donahue Fontenot
Kyle Gardiner
Barrie Hemsley
Joel C. High
Susan Jacobs
Renard T. Jenkins
Joshua Levinson
Larry McConkey
David James McKimmie
Samantha Jo “Mandy” Moore
Kenny Ortega
Prem Rakshith
Chad Stahelski
David Webb
Woo-Ping Yuen

Production Design
Alain Bainée – “Society of the Snow,” “Official Competition”
Annie Beauchamp – “Swan Song,” “Penguin Bloom”
Ruth De Jong – “Oppenheimer,” “Nope”
Douglas Dresser – “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Finch”
Emmanuelle Duplay – “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Red Island”
Warren Flanagan – “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” “Godzilla: King of the Monsters”
Lorin Flemming – “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”
Henry Fong – “Army of the Dead,” “A Wrinkle in Time”
Jennifer Gentile – “Blue Beetle,” “Malignant”
Shona Heath – “Poor Things”
Sam Hutchins – “The Greatest Beer Run Ever,” “Joker”
Steven Jones-Evans – “Anyone but You,” “Carmen”
Claire Kaufman – “Oppenheimer,” “White Noise”
Carol Kupisz – “Napoleon,” “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”
Zsuzsa Mihalek – “Poor Things,” “Atomic Blonde”
Edwin L. Natividad – “Blue Beetle,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”
Till Benjamin Nowak – “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Black Panther”
Chris Oddy – “The Zone of Interest,” “King of Thieves”
Jenny Oman – “Mr. Malcolm’s List,” “The Green Knight”
Adam O’Neill – “Chevalier,” “Empire of Light”
James Price – “Poor Things,” “The Iron Claw”
Peggy Pridemore – “Mark Felt: The Man Who Brought Down the White House,” “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back”
Scott Purcell – “Ambulance,” “A Quiet Place”
Steve Saklad – “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.,” “Barb & Star Go to Vista Del Mar”
Rick Schuler – “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” “Once upon a Time…in Hollywood”
Don Shank – “Elemental,” “Luca”
Andrew M. Siegel – “The Fabelmans,” “Birds of Prey and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn”
Tom Targownik Taylor – “Stand Up Guys,” “Little Fockers”
Adam Willis – “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “Marriage Story”
Katia Wyszkop – “Peter von Kant,” “Une Jeune Fille Qui Va Bien”
Milena Zdravkovic – “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”

Short Films and Feature Animation
Dan Abraham – “Once upon a Studio,” “Planes”
Abigail Addison – “The Debutante,” “I’m OK”
Michael Andrews* – “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Megamind”
Brad Booker – “WAR IS OVER! Inspired by the Music of John & Yoko,” “The Book of Life”
Samuel Caron – “Invincible,” “As Happy as Can Be”
Nazrin Choudhury – “Red, White and Blue”
Sarah Helen Cox – “Heavy Pockets,” “Plain Pleasures”
Louie Del Carmen – “Luck,” “The Star”
Kayla Galang – “When You Left Me on That Boulevard,” “Joan on the Phone”
Amit R. Gicelter – “Letter to a Pig,” “Black Slide”
Alan Hawkins – “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “The Mitchells vs. the Machines”
Atsuko Ishizuka – “Goodbye, Don Glees!,” “No Game No Life: Zero”
Tal Kantor – “Letter to a Pig,” “In Other Words”
Àlex Lora – “The Fourth Kingdom,” “Us”
James Mansfield – “Zootopia,” “Hercules”
Patrick Mate – “Smurfs: The Lost Village,” “Puss in Boots”
Boris Mendza – “Bazigaga,” “Rise of a Star”
Yegane Moghaddam – “Our Uniform,” “On the Cover”
Maral Mohammadian – “Impossible Figures and Other Stories I,” “Shannon Amen”
Mari Okada – “Maboroshi,” “Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms”
Ryo Orikasa – “Miserable Miracle,” “Datum Point”
Frank Passingham – “Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio,” “Kubo and the Two Strings”
Ülo Pikkov – “’Til We Meet Again,” “Empty Space”
Rebecca Pruzan – “Lovesick,” “Ivalu”
Troy Quane – “Nimona,” “Spies in Disguise”
Vincent René-Lortie – “Invincible,” “The Man Who Traveled Nowhere in Time”
Carlos Segundo – “Big Bang,” “Sideral”
Pauline Seigland – “One and Thousand Nights,” “Little Hands”
Shuzo Shiota – “Blame!,” “Muybridge’s String”
Justin K. Thompson – “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs”
Christine Turner* – “The Barber of Little Rock,” “Lynching Postcards: “Token of a Great Day””
Theodore Ty – “Nimona,” “Lilo & Stitch”
Chie Uratani – “In This Corner of the World,” “Summer Wars”
Viviane Vanfleteren – “Titina,” “The Secret of Kells”
Atsushi Wada – “Bird in the Peninsula,” “The Great Rabbit”
Virgil Widrich – “Fast Film,” “Copy Shop”
Masaaki Yuasa – “Inu-Oh,” “Mind Game”
Rayka Zehtabchi – “Are You Still There?,” “Period. End of Sentence.”

Sound
Gina R. Alfano – “Baby Ruby,” “You Hurt My Feelings”
Manfred Banach – “Home Sweet Home – Where Evil Lives,” “John Wick: Chapter 4”
Stephanie Brown – “Haunted Mansion,” “The Marvels”
Johnnie Burn – “The Zone of Interest,” “Poor Things”
Alexandra Fehrman – “American Fiction,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Linda Forsén – “Love Lies Bleeding,” “A House Made of Splinters”
Lee Gilmore – “Dune: Part Two,” “The Batman”
Glynna Grimala – “End of the Road,” “Father Stu”
Loveday Harding – “Heart of Stone,” “The Batman”
Brent Kiser – “The Lionheart,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once”
Frédéric Le Louêt – “Only 3 Days Left,” “Alibi.com 2”
Steven A. Levy – “Oppenheimer,” “Tenet”
Kate Morath – “The Boys in the Boat,” “Belfast”
Mark Purcell – “Maestro,” “Dune”
Alejandro Quevedo – “Murder City,” “Radical”
David M. Roberts – “The Killer,” “Killers of the Flower Moon”
Shelley Roden     – “Elemental,” “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”
Jay Rubin – “How to Blow Up a Pipeline,” “Master Gardener”
Ian Voigt – “The Creator,” “The Hustle”
Laura Wiest – “The Boogeyman,” “Sanctuary”
Tarn Willers – “The Zone of Interest,” “Starve Acre”
Linda Yeaney – “The Beekeeper,” “Interstellar”

Visual Effects
Gerardo Aguilera – “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Avengers: Endgame”
Stephen Hugh Richard Clee – “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Ant-Man and the Wasp”
Simone Coco – “Napoleon,” “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One”
Ian Comley – “The Creator,” “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”
Tim Dobbert – “The Creator,” “Kong: Skull Island”
Emile Ghorayeb – “Nope,” “Alita: Battle Angel”
Michael Grobe – “Dune: Part Two,” “Fast X”
Trevor Hazel – “The Creator,” “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor among Thieves”
Tamara Kent – “Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire,” “The Flash”
Julius Lechner – “The Batman,” “Spider-Man: Far from Home”
Allan Magled – “Bad Boys for Life,” “Geostorm”
Luc-Ewen Martin-Fenouillet – “Napoleon,” “Cruella”
Raymond McMillan – “Little Children,” “Dracula 2000”
Lori C. Miller – “Nyad,” “Avatar: The Way of Water”
Johnathan Nixon – “Nyad,” “Avatar: The Way of Water”
Tatsuji Nojima – “Godzilla Minus One,” “Ghost Book Obake Zukan”
Rick Walter O’Connor – “Bumblebee,” “A Quiet Place”
Stephane Paris – “The Commuter,” “Guardians of the Galaxy”
Laura Pedro – “Society of the Snow,” “A Monster Calls”
Pietro Ponti – “The Marvels,” “Terminator Genisys”
Kyle Robinson – “The Flash,” “Black Panther”
Kiyoko Shibuya – “Godzilla Minus One,” “Ghost Book Obake Zukan”
Kathy Siegel – “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” “Ford v Ferrari”
Orde Stevanoski – “Smurfs: The Lost Village,” “Alice through the Looking Glass”
Masaki Takahashi – “Godzilla Minus One,” “Parasyte”
Alexis Wajsbrot – “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”
Alex Wuttke – “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”
Takashi Yamazaki – “Godzilla Minus One,” “Parasyte”
Dennis Yoo – “The Batman,” “War for the Planet of the Apes”

Writers
Bahrām Beyzaie* – “When We Are All Asleep,” “Killing Mad Dogs”
Elegance Bratton – “The Inspection,” “Pier Kids”
Samy Burch – “May December”
Dave Callaham – “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings”
Alessandro Camon – “The Listener,” “The Messenger”
Nicolás Casariego – “Society of the Snow,” “Intruders”
İlker Çatak* – “The Teachers’ Lounge,” “I Was, I Am, I Will Be”
Massimo Ceccherini – “Io Capitano,” “Pinocchio”
Linda Yvette Chávez – “Flamin’ Hot”
Akela Cooper – “M3gan,” “The Nun II”
Gareth Dunnet-Alcocer – “Blue Beetle,” “Miss Bala”
Zeina Durra – “Luxor,” “The Imperialists Are Still Alive!”
Lee Eisenberg – “Good Boys,” “Bad Teacher”
Massimo Gaudioso – “Io Capitano,” “Tale of Tales”
Arthur Harari – “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle”
David Hemingson – “The Holdovers”
Cord Jefferson* – “American Fiction”
Erik Jendresen – “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One,” “Ithaca”
Maryam Keshavarz – “The Persian Version,” “Circumstance”
Marc Klein – “Mirror Mirror,” “Serendipity”
Kogonada – “After Yang,” “Columbus”
Tony McNamara – “Poor Things,” “The Favourite”
Rhett Reese – “Ghosted,” “Deadpool”
Tony Rettenmaier – “They Cloned Tyrone,” “Young. Wild. Free.”
Bernard Rose – “Traveling Light,” “Candyman”
Sarah Adina Smith – “The Drop,” “Birds of Paradise”
Celine Song* – “Past Lives”
Gene Stupnitsky – “No Hard Feelings,” “Good Boys”
Takuma Takasaki – “Perfect Days,” “Honokaa Boy”
Juel Taylor – “They Cloned Tyrone,” “Creed II”
Erica Tremblay – “Fancy Dance,” “Heartland: A Portrait of Survival”
Justine Triet* – “Anatomy of a Fall,” “Sibyl”
Eva Vives – “All about Nina,” “Raising Victor Vargas”
Paul Wernick – “Ghosted,” “Deadpool”

Artist Representatives
Laura Berwick
Eryn Brown
John Carrabino
Hillary Cook
Tim Curtis
Brian Dobbins
Frank Frattaroli
Jay Gassner
Roger Green
Laurent Gregoire
Jermaine Johnson
Theresa Kang
Becca Kovacik
Linda Lichter
Douglas Lucterhand
Devin Mann
Gregory McKnight
Evelyn O’Neill
David Park
Cynthia Lee Pett
Valarie Phillips
Maggie Pisacane
Lindsay Porter
Gretchen Rush
Jodi Shields
Chris Silbermann
Carolyn Sivitz
Gary Ungar
Douglas Urbanski
Steve Warren
Alex Yarosh

The post Lily Gladstone, Sandra Hüller, Da’Vine Joy Randolph Among 487 Invited to Join the Academy appeared first on TheWrap.

Kramer took over the position in June 2022 after the departure of Dawn Hudson. His three-year contract with the Academy was originally not up for renewal until 2025, but the board renewed it a year early to secure his services for an additional three years.

“Bill is a dynamic and transformational leader, and the Board of Governors agrees he is the ideal person to continue to broaden the Academy’s reach and impact on our international film community and successfully guide the organization into our next 100 years,” Academy president Janet Yang said in a Monday statement.

Kramer first joined the Academy in 2012 and oversaw fundraising for the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures. He became director of the Academy Museum in 2020, during a time when the museum was under construction and its exhibition plans were transitioning from a survey of film history to one more focused on diversity and the contributions of underrepresented voices.

The executive recently oversaw the Academy100 revenue diversification and outreach program, which is designed to expand AMPAS’ worldwide scope and raise money in advance of the 100th Academy Awards ceremony in 2028.

According to the new press release, he will “continue to oversee all aspects of the Academy and its more than 700 employees in Los Angeles, New York and London.” Kramer will also “continue to lead the expansion and engagement of the Academy’s global membership, all awards programs including the Oscars, the institution’s education and emerging talent initiatives, the Academy’s extensive collection and preservation initiatives and its ongoing calendar of screenings and public programs.” 

Over the next four years of Kramer’s time as CEO, the Academy will face questions about the role of its museum, the slump in theatrical moviegoing and the state of the Oscars’ TV deal with ABC, which expires in 2028 and may well be replaced by a less lucrative deal.

The post Oscars Academy Renews Bill Kramer’s Contract as CEO appeared first on TheWrap.