Foreign Language Oscar Submissions: All Films
Filmatique presents Foreign Language Oscar Submissions, a collection of films that provides a countervailing vision of world cinema––one more vibrant and diverse than the Academy might have us think––and seeks to present a more diverse and expansive vision of international cinema by celebrating films from underrepresented nations.
In the 63 years since the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film has existed, only 26 nations have ever been represented onstage.
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The First Beautiful Thing
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Paolo Virzì • Italy • 2010 • A gentle comedy of life, love, and family.
Bruno, a middle-aged teacher, sits stoned out of his mind on a park bench. He’s forgotten his own birthday, much to the chagrin of his girlfriend, Sandra, who organized the party. Before he can say no, Bruno...
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The Idol
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Hany Abu-Assad • Palestine • 2016 • A teen smuggles himself across borders to audition for Arab Idol
Gaza, 2005. Despite the despair of their suroundings, ten-year-old Mohammed and his sister, Nour, spend their days immersed in childhood games and music, playing in a band with tw...
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The Nightingale
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Philippe Muyl • China-France • 2013 • A journey of family, nature, and tradition in modern China.
Renxing, an only child, lives with her parents in Beijing. Between their demanding professions, they have little time for her, which they compensate for with gifts and pampering. O...
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The Road to Mother
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Akan Satayev • Kazakhstan • 2016
1922. A boy, Ilyas, is born to a nomadic family in the Kazakh steps. Some years later, soldiers arrive to enforce Soviet the policy of collective farming, polarizing the community among those who welcome change, and those who don't. Ilyas's fami...
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The Rocket
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Kim Mourdant • Australia • 2013
Since the time he was born, Ahlo has been told he’s bad luck. Twins are inauspicious in Laotian culture, and Ahlo’s brother perished during childbirth. To the objection of some in her family, Ahlo’s mother raised the small boy anyway, showering h...
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The Scent of Green Papaya
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Tran Anh Hung • 1993 • Vietnam
A society's slow decline tracks with a woman's romantic blossoming.
In 1950s Saigon, ten-year-old Mui obtains a job working as a servant for an affluent Vietnamese family. Ten years later, the family has fallen on hard times, leading Mui to change ...
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Tulpan
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Sergey Dvortsevoy • 2008 • Kazakhstan
Tulpan captures the rhythms of nomadic existence in a surreal and barren landscape, revealing a starkly beautiful, if not vanishing way of life
Upon completion of his Russian naval service, Asa returns to the windswept Kazakhstani steppe wher...
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What Will People Say
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Iram Haq • 2017 • Norway • Nisha is sent to live in a small village 200 miles from Islamabad.
Sixteen year-old Nisha lives in Oslo. At home, she adheres to the conservative values of her Pakistani family; with her friends, Nisha is an average Norwegian teenager. When Nisha's fat...
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When I Saw You
Annemarie Jacir • 2012 • Palestine-Jordan
Annemarie Jacir’s second film observes the effects of the Six Day War on a young boy who has been displaced to a Jordanian refugee camp.
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Willow
Donka and her husband Milan live in a medieval village, having been married for five years. Despite their overwhelming wish to conceive, they have not been able to. In a moment of desperation, they turn to an old woman who will help them bear many children, but only if she gives them their firs...
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Winter Sleep
Nuri Bilge Ceylan • Turkey • 2014
Cappadocia, present day. Aydin, a retired actor, runs a small hotel, where he lives with beautiful young wife Nihal and his recently divorced sister. Growingly restless in this provincial region, Nihal busies herself with small philanthropic projects; Aydin, m...
