Eric Tolenado and Olivier Nakache's The Intouchables

Welcome to The Season, the new FilmLinc.com section for year-end editorial coverage of everyone's favorite topics: awards, nominations and the best films of 2012! A whopping 50 of last year's Oscar nominations went to films that played in our festivals and theaters, and we're betting this year will be no different. So join us as we hash out all the nods, lauds, and snubs now through the end of The Season!

Just two days ago, we announced that NYFF Main Slate Selection Bwakaw would represent the Philippines in the Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film. Yesterday, France and Canada made their first steps towards Oscar gold and added their respective selections to the already-impressive list of foreign language films.

The correlation between Film Society programming and Foreign Language Film selections continues with France's submission, Eric Tolenado and Olivier Nakache's The Intouchables, which screened here earlier this year as part of our popular annual Rendez-Vouz with French Cinema festival. The announcement was received with a bit of surprise as Eric Tolenado and Olivier Nakache's film beat out the likes of Rust and Bone, a film that boasts two of the biggest names in modern French cinema in Jaqcues Audiard (director of 2009 Oscar nominee A Prophet) and Marion Cotillard. Yet despite the latter's cinephilic attractiveness, its commercial viability certainly cannot compare to the official French selection, which shattered box-office records to become the highest-grossing French film in history. 


Kim Nguyen's War Witch

A similar surpise came with Canada's announcement of Kim Nguyen's War Witch as their representative film when just this past weekend the critically-acclaimed Laurence Anyways, from Québec-born wunderkind Xavier Dolan, won the award for Best Canadian Film at the Toronto International Film Festival. Although maybe not as widely talked-about as Dolan's film, Nguyen's War Witch holds equally impressive accolades. Earlier this year, Rachel Kwanza, the film's star, was awarded the Best Actress Award at the Berlin Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival, where the film won the Best Narrative Feature prize, as well. With War Witch, Canada seeks their third consecutive nomination for Best Foreign Language Film after Denis Villeneuve's Incendies in 2010 and last year's Monsieur Lazhar from Philippe Falardeau. War Witch was the Benefit Film at this year's Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

Even more great films will be added to this list with selections from Brazil, Spain, and Switzerland and many more expected to be announced within the next week. Be sure to check back here with the latest updates!

Here's a list of the films that have already been submitted for consideration:
Michael Haneke's Amour (Austria)
Cate Shortland's Lore (Australia)
Ilgar Najaf's Buta (Azerbaijan)
Joachim Lafosse's Our Children (Belgium)
Aida Begić's Children of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Chhay Bora's Lost Loves (Cambodia)
Kim Nguyen's War Witch (Canada)
Branko Schmidt's Cannibal Vegetarian (Croatia)
Eric Tolenado and Olivier Nakache's The Intouchables ​(France)
Christian Petzold's Barbara (Germany)
Filippos Tsitos' Unfair World (Greece)
Benedek Fliegauf's Just the Wind (Hungary)
Yong-hi Yang's Our Homeland (Japan)
Darko Mitrevski's The Third Half (Macedonia)
Faouzi Bensaïdi's Death for Sale (Morocco)
Boudewijn Koole's Kauwboy (Netherlands)
Joachim Rønning & Espen Sandberg's Kon-Tiki (Norway)
Annemarie Jacir's When I Saw You (Palestine)
Jun Robles Lana's Bwakaw (The Phillippines)
Waldemar Krzystek's 80 Million (Poland)
João Canijo's Blood of My Blood (Portugal)
Cristian Mungiu's Beyond the Hills (Romania)
Goran Paskaljević's When Day Breaks (Serbia)
Nejc Gazvoda's A Trip (Slovenia)
Kim Ki-duk's Pietà (South Korea)
Lasse Hallström's The Hypnotist (Sweden)
Mykhailo Illienko's Firecrosser (Ukraine)
Hernán Jabes' Rock, Paper, Scissors (Venezuela)