‘Drive My Car’ Director Ryusuke Hamaguchi On Adapting Haruki Murakami & Finishing Two Films During Pandemic – Contenders International

Stephen Karam’s 2016 Tony-winning play The Humans has been hailed by critics for holding a great mirror to New York City’s hard-scrabble inhabitants in the wake of 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy. However, the A24 film version, Karam’s feature directorial debut, arrives in theaters and on Showtime at an intriguing time, taking on an additional level of significance during a global pandemic.

Edgy rock band the Velvet Underground was an outgrowth of manager Andy Warhol’s avant garde art movement that over time has emerged as one of the most influential groups of the 1960s and ‘70s. It also exerted a powerful influence – particularly in the image crafted in Warhol’s films – on the way filmmaker Todd Haynes presented the group onscreen in the documentary The Velvet Underground.

Procession director Robert Greene said he would have stopped filming at any point if it was harming his subjects. He followed six survivors of sexual abuse by Kansas City priests as they re-created scenes of their experiences in the church. Greene spoke with Deadline’s Matthew Carey about the film for The Contenders: Documentary.

It took eight years and a very enticing look book before Lamb co-writer and director Valdimar Jóhannsson got Iceland’s current Oscar entry off the ground.

Starring newcomer Erik Enge, Black Spark Film’s Tigers tells the extraordinary true story of Swedish soccer star Martin Bengtsson, who made his international debut at just 17 years old. In stark contrast to many other sporting movies, which tend to focus on stories of triumph over adversity, Ronnie Sandahl’s movie from Black Spark Film examines the true cost of success in the world of professional football and the pressures that almost cost Bengtsson his life.

Escape From Mogadishu, Korea’s submission to this year’s International Feature Oscar race, tells the harrowing true story of North and South Koreans caught in the middle of a brutal civil war in Somalia in 1991, and how the divided nation worked together to survive the crisis in a foreign land.

The sobering story of Pebbles, about domestic violence in India, is inspired by an incident in filmmaker P.S. Vinothraj’s real-life past, in which his sister was “chased away by her husband” and forced to walk 14 miles whilst cradling her baby in scorching terrain.

Filmed with an international cast speaking French, English and Spanish, and co-written with cinematographer Sara Mishara, Ivan Grbovic’s Drunken Birds begins in urban, crime-infested Mexico and swiftly transports us to the rural farmlands of Quebec, where former drug runner Willy has come in search of a former lover is in hiding from her mobster partner.

Lana Barić joined director Danilo Šerbedžija at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International awards-season event to talk about the taboo-busting Tereza37, Croatia’s official candidate for the International Feature Oscar. The film centers on Barić’s character Tereza, a married woman who decides to sleep with multiple men while trying for a baby.

Filmed in the mountains of Greece — which doubled for the stark, alien landscapes of war-torn Afghanistan — Shariff Korver’s Do Not Hesitate tells the story of three young Dutch soldiers who are left guarding a military vehicle after it breaks down. A chance encounter with a local boy causes tensions in the group, which reach a shocking climax.

Ivan Ikić’s second feature Oasis is representing Serbia in the International Feature Oscar race this year following its buzzy premiere at the Venice Film Festival. The pic explores how a friendship between Marija (Marijana Novakov) and Dragana (Tijana Markovic) is put to the test, as they both develop a crush on Robert (Valentino Zenuni), a fellow resident at an institution for people with disabilities.

Agathe Rousselle is at the center of this year’s Cannes Palme d’Or-winning film Titane, in which she plays a psychopathic serial killer experiencing a bizarre pregnancy—a job one might consider best left to the experienced actor. But, surprisingly, despite more than holding her own in the part, Rousselle is brand new to the game, having been plucked from Instagram to take on the role.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul has long been an ambassador for his native Thailand, but his latest film—the Cannes Competition hit Memoria—was shot entirely in Colombia, which has chosen the film as its 2021 International Feature Oscar entry. Compounding the truly international flavor of the production, it stars the UK’s Tilda Swinton as a Scottish woman named Jessica who is in Bogotá to see her sister when a mysterious noise she hears at daybreak sets her on a mesmerizing journey of self-discovery.

Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi has represented his country in the International Oscar race an impressive five times, winning the coveted prize on two occasions (for The Salesman and A Separation).

The story of I’m Your Man, Germany’s submission to the International Feature Oscar race, is rife with humanity — even if one of the central characters is a humanoid robot. Inspired by a short story from Emma Braslavsky, the premise sparked for both director Maria Schrader and co-star Dan Stevens, as they told us during a Bleecker Street panel at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International awards-season event.

For director Tatiana Huezo, her debut feature Prayers for the Stolen (Noche de Fuego) was largely a balancing act of telling a coming-of-age story of young girls while also conveying a story of corruption, drugs and human trafficking in the Mexican countryside.

For Finnish director Juho Kuosmanen, it was always an ambition of his to shoot a film on a train as well as a film in Russia. So, when he first read the 2011 novel Compartment No. 6 by Rosa Liksom, he was immediately compelled to take it to the big screen.

Paolo Sorrentino returns to the Oscar fray eight years after he bagged the International Feature prize for The Great Beauty. His latest film, The Hand of God, has been one of the buzz films of the fall festivals, taking home the Venice Grand Jury Prize and also playing at Telluride and London.

At Deadline’s Contenders Film: International award-season event, director Eran Kolirin (The Band’s Visit) explained why he chose to adapt Sayed Kashua’s novel Let It be Morning, the film that has become Israel’s submission into the International Feature Oscar race.

Marking their third collaboration in 20 years, filmmaker Fernando León de Aranoa and Oscar winner Javier Bardem reteamed for The Good Boss, which is representing Spain in this year’s International Feature Oscar race. The duo joined Deadline’s Contenders Film: International awards-season event to discuss the movie and their enduring relationship.