FLOS: Foreign Language Oscar® Submissions
Step into the Oscar® season with this selection of Foreign-Language contenders.
Eyes on the Prize: Foreign Language Oscar® Directors in Discussion
It’s another notable year for the Academy’s Best Film in a Foreign Language category: 87 countries put forward a film in the hopes of taking home that coveted golden statue. In December that impressive number will narrow to nine, with the final five nominees announced on January 22. Of those 87 national selections, 43 are on... Read More
Running Time: 90
Birds of Passage
What was meant to be a one-time marijuana deal by a member of Colombia’s Wayuu tribe soon becomes a major drug trafficking operation. It transforms the group and sets in motion the disintegration of a rich culture in this gripping, epic crime film. Read More
Running Time: 125
Buffalo Boys
This raucous anti-colonialist fantasy reminiscent of Django Unchained is the first Indonesian Western. Following a brutal massacre and murder of Sultan Hamza, his two young sons are taken to America to learn the ways of the West in preparation for revenge in a surprising showdown. Read More
Running Time: 103
Champions
A hilarious and heartfelt spin on the classic underdog tale — with central roles performed by intellectually disabled actors — writer/director Javier Fesser’s film is not only Spain’s newest box office smash, but a rollicking and unforgettable reminder that none of us is truly “normal.” Read More
Running Time: 124
Cold War
It’s been five years since the Academy Award®-winning Ida, but Pawel Pawlikowski’s achingly beautiful portrait of l’amour fou proves well worth the wait. Unfolding against the backdrop of the Cold War years in Poland, Berlin, Yugoslavia and Paris, the film renders believable a complicated and disruptive love in impossible... Read More
Running Time: 88
Dogman
Italian maestro Matteo Garrone (Gomorrah, PSIFF 2009) returns with a visually astounding and biting morality tale centered on Marcello, a meek dog groomer and small-time drug dealer, and his toxic relationship with a barbaric gangster who terrorizes his desolate coastal town. Read More
Running Time: 102
Eldorado
Asking deeply relevant questions about humanity and social responsibility, Markus Imhoof draws on his personal experience to show a global phenomenon — the struggle of thousands of refugees fleeing from Africa to Europe, and what happens when they reach their Eldorado. Read More
Running Time: 91
Euthanizer
Writer/director Teemu Nikki describes his darkly comic drama about a man merciful to animals but ruthless to humans as “Dirty Harry with pets.” Cranky loner Veijo puts animals out of their misery and delivers justice to careless owners who neglect their pets. Read More
Running Time: 85
Family First
The fragile thread holding together two brothers and their recovering alcoholic mother becomes strained to the point of crisis when the elder brother attempts to break away from the family’s criminal activities. Read More
Running Time: 87
The Guilty
In the year’s most heart-pounding 85 minutes in cinema, a sidelined Danish police officer desperately attempts to thwart an alleged kidnapping, and worse, all from the confines of his frustratingly limited emergency call center desk in this ingenious, nail-biting thriller. Read More
Running Time: 85
The Heiresses
As part of Paraguay’s fading aristocracy and in dire financial straits, introvert Chela finds work as an ad hoc chauffeur. This leads to an encounter with earthy, sensual Angy — and an unexpected late-in-life revelation — in this sly and funny debut feature from writer/director Marcelo Martinessi. Read More
Running Time: 97
Hidden Man
Jiang Wen’s stylish, ribald revenge thriller, set in 1930s Beijing, has Chinese-born, American-raised Li (Eddie Peng) return to the capital as an American spy bent on avenging the murder of his childhood kung-fu master. Multiple plot twists and luminous production design make this great fun indeed. Read More
Running Time: 134
I Do Not Care if We Go Down in History as Barbarians
Intent on forcing contemporary society to confront the realities of the past, a young artist prepares an elaborate public performance detailing ethnic cleansing carried out by the Romanian military on the Eastern Front in 1941. But when the curtain rises, will the audience’s reaction be what she intended? Read More
Running Time: 140