Belarus Oscar Entry ‘Persian Lessons’ Disqualified From International Feature Film Race (EXCLUSIVE)

Fernando Frias’ I’m No Longer Here (Ya No Estoy Aquí) had a long journey to the screen — conceived when Frias was a student at New York’s Columbia University, the project was selected by the Sundance Writers Lab in 2014, and went before cameras in 2017, ultimately hitting the festival circuit in 2019, and Netflix last year. Challenges in getting the acclaimed drama made included everything from financing hurdles to a lengthy hiatus and the lead actor being rejected for a U.S.

Set in 2025, Ukraine’s post-apocalyptic International Feature Film Oscar entry Atlantis imagines life — and death — in the country one year after the ongoing war with Russia has ended. Sergiy (Andriy Rymaruk) and his friend Ivan (Vasyl Antoniak) both suffer from PTSD, and lead joyless lives shooting at targets and working in a steel factory. When the factory is closed down by its British owner, Sergiy ends up driving a water truck around the barren landscape.  

Clayton Davis Riz Ahmed, one of the top contenders in the best actor race, is being honored by the Miami Film Festival with its inaugural Impact Award.“Sound of Metal,” co-written and directed by Darius Marder, tells the story of a heavy metal drummer (Ahmed) who begins to lose his hearing.

Also Read: Poland's Oscar Submission 'Never Gonna Snow Again' Acquired by Kino LorberAlthough her son brought Utgoff to Szumowska’s attention, he was also convinced she had no shot of coaxing the star of a successful TV series to play Zenia, an enigmatic masseur who travels from house to house in an affluent suburban housing estate in an Eastern European city, casting a mysterious spell over his troubled, desperately lonely clients and their families.“I said, ‘I don’t care, he’s going to be in

Artists of all stripes have openly grappled with the spectres of their own mortality, but few film directors have confronted their own looming deaths as bluntly, or with as much vitality, as did Hector Babenco by participating in this climactic work, the part-sober documentary/part-boisterous extravaganza Babenco: Tell Me When I Die.

Anna Marie de la Fuente It’s been a banner year for Latin American cinema where 18 countries, including newcomer Suriname, have submitted films to vie for the international feature Oscar. Half of this year’s crop are by women, many of them debuts.

“I’m sick of stories about frustrated couples who rip each other apart and explore their sexuality to escape boredom,” says Lisa (Nina Hoss) in My Little Sister. While there is plenty of frustration, and some sex, in Switzerland’s International Feature Film Oscar entry, this is not that story. It’s the tender tale of theatrical German twins brought closer by cancer.  


And Tomorrow The Entire World, the engaged latest film from writer-director Julia von Heinz, is something close to transfixing, as it zeroes in on the vital distinction between being a weekend radical and a truly committed game-changer. Germany’s Best International Feature Film Oscar entry made an impression at last year’s Venice Film Festival and should connect strongly with younger audiences in many parts of the world.

Angelique Jackson CAA has signed filmmaker Déa Kulumbegashvili, whose film “Beginning” is Georgia’s submission for best international feature at the 2021 Oscars.“Beginning” marks Kulumbegashvili’s feature directorial debut and has made major waves along the film festival circuit since its debut last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival, where the film won the Fipresci Prize.

“Charlatan” seems too harshly definitive a term to apply to the fascinating protagonist of the new film with the self-same title, given that the Middle European physician titularly accused of medical deception successfully plied a busy career treating eager patients across more than three decades under three vastly different political regimes.

If you are looking to stir emotions and grab some tissues this weekend Our Friend has got you covered.

when it comes to life on the farm with Brandon and his parents in rural Virginia.In this exclusive clip from Sunday's new episode of, 26-year-old Julia — who hails from Russia and moved to Dinwiddie, Virginia, to be with her fiancé, 27-year-old Brandon, whom she connected with online — can no longer tolerate living on the farm and doing the chores.

A sleeper hit at Sundance, the sublimely disturbing Once Upon A Time In Venezuela has been taken under wing by the Topic streaming service and forwarded as the troubled nation’s Oscar submission for Best International Feature.

Mexico’s entry to the International Feature Film Oscar race, Fernando Frias’ I’m No Longer Here (Ya No Estoy Aqui), is an ultra-skillful, if sometimes dramatically undernourished account of an enterprising teenager’s attempt to move beyond a life on the streets.

EXCLUSIVE: Cloudburst Entertainment has acquired rights to Songs of Solomon, Armenia’s official entry for this year’s International Feature Film Oscar race. The drama, directed by Arman Nshanian, who also produced the pic with Oscar-winning Green Book producer and co-writer Nick Vallelonga and Asko Akopyan, will get a 2021 release date.

Leo Barraclough Senior International CorrespondentAgnieszka Holland’s “Charlatan,” the Czech Republic’s official entry in the International Feature Film category of the 93rd Academy Awards, has been acquired for distribution in the U.K. and Ireland by AX1 from international sales agency Films Boutique.

“I wanted to do this project for a long time, I had this story in mind for years and years,” says director Filippo Meneghetti about Two of Us, France’s Oscar entry this year, adding that he also spent an additional five years writing the screenplay with his co-writer Malysone Bovorasmy.

This year’s International Oscar entry for Switzerland, My Little Sister, follows a woman who has largely given up on her ambition to be a playwright and returns to Berlin to look after her twin brother, a famous actor with a terminal illness. It is directed by long-term collaborators and co-directors Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.

Drawing attention to the colorful and challenging lives of the elderly, genre-bending The Mole Agent is a film that changed completely from initial concept to final product.

Never Gonna Snow Again co-directors and co-writers Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert’s professional collaboration is an unusual one — the pair are ex-husband and wife. But Szumowska says their enduring partnership shows “collaboration is possible.”