Rama Burshtein's Fill the Void
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!
In our continued coverage of the Oscar season, today we have four major announcements to report in the expanding list of Best Foreign Language Film entries. Last week, Fill the Void was named Film of the Year at the Ophir Awards, Israel's national film award ceremony, and was subsequently selected as the country's official submission into the Oscar race. Fill the Void marks the feature debut of Rama Burshtein and is an official selection at this year's New York Film Festival.
No, another NYFF Main Slate film, will represent Chile in its quest for Oscar glory. LarraĂn's political biopic starring Gael GarcĂa Bernal is another piece of evidence pointing to a recent resurgence in Chilean cinema, with films such as Cristián JimĂ©nez's Bonsai and Marialy Rivas' Young & Wild, which closed this year's NewFest at the Film Society.
Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Caesar Must Die
Italy has selected Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Caesar Must Die as its official Oscar selection, bringing the total number of New York Film Festival films representing their nations to eight. The film follows a group of inmates in a maximum security prison as they put on a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The Taviani brothers's latest won the Golden Bear at this year’s Berlin Film Festival.
The fourth major submission announcement, Ursula Meier's Sister, comes from Switzerland and, unlike the other two, it is not a part of the New York Film Festival. But, it is set to be to be released here in New York City on October 5. The film stars Léa Seydoux—seen in recent films such as Raúl Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon and Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris—and won the Silver Bear award at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year.
Here's a list of the films that have already been submitted for consideration:
Joni Shanaj's Pharmakon (Albania)
Said Ould Khelifa's Zabana! (Algeria)
Natalya Belyauskene's If Only Everyone (Armenia)
Michael Haneke's Amour (Austria)
Cate Shortland's Lore (Australia)
Ilgar Najaf's Buta (Azerbaijan)
Humayun Ahmed's Ghetuputra Kamola (Bangladesh)
Joachim Lafosse's Our Children (Belgium)
Aida Begić's Children of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
Selton Mello's The Clown (Brazil)
Valeri Yordanov's Sneakers (Bulgaria)
Chhay Bora's Lost Loves (Cambodia)
Kim Nguyen's War Witch (Canada)
Pablo LarraĂn's No (Chile)
Branko Schmidt's Cannibal Vegetarian (Croatia)
David OndřĂček's In the Shadows (Czech Republic)
Nikolaj Arcel's A Royal Affair (Denmark)
JosĂ© MarĂa Cabral's Check Mate (Dominican Republic)
Toomas Hussar's Mushrooming (Estonia)
Antti Jokinen's Purge (Finland)
Eric Tolenado and Olivier Nakache's The Intouchables ​(France)
Rusudan Chkonia's Keep Smiling (Georgia)
Christian Petzold's Barbara (Germany)
Filippos Tsitos' Unfair World (Greece)
Johnnie To's Life Without Principle (Hong Kong)
Benedek Fliegauf's Just the Wind (Hungary)
Baltasar Kormákur's The Deep (Iceland)
Anurag Basu's Barfi! (India)
Ifa Isfansyah's Tiny Dancer (Indonesia)
Rama Burshtein's Fill the Void (Israel)
Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Caesar Must Die (Italy)
Yong-hi Yang's Our Homeland (Japan)
Akan Satayev's Myn Bala (Kazakhstan)
David 'Tosh' Gitonga's Nairobi Half Life (Kenya)
Darko Mitrevski's The Third Half (Macedonia)
Michel Franco's After Lucia (Mexico)
Faouzi BensaĂŻdi'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)
Rosario Garcia-Montero's The Bad Intentions (Peru)
Jun Robles Lana's Bwakaw (The Phillippines)
Waldemar Krzystek's 80 Million (Poland)
JoĂŁo Canijo's Blood of My Blood (Portugal)
Cristian Mungiu's Beyond the Hills (Romania)
Karen Shakhnazarov's White Tiger (Russia)
Goran Paskaljević's When Day Breaks (Serbia)
Iveta Grófová Made in Ash (Slovakia)
Nejc Gazvoda's A Trip (Slovenia)
Kim Ki-duk's PietĂ (South Korea)
Pablo Berger's Blancanieves (Spain)
Lasse Hallström's The Hypnotist (Sweden)
Ursula Meier's Sister (Switzerland)
Chang Rong-ji's Touch of the Light (Taiwan)
Pen-Ek Ratanaruang's Headshot (Thailand)
İsmail GĂĽneş' Where the Fire Burns (Turkey)
Mykhailo Illienko's Firecrosser (Ukraine)
Hernán Jabes' Rock, Paper, Scissors (Venezuela)
Nguyễn Hữu Mười's The Scent of Burning Grass (Vietnam)
