Pedro Almodóvar and Pixar’s First Gay Hero Story Make Oscar Shortlists for Short Films

Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentThe Party Film Sales has closed further deals on Filippo Meneghetti’s romance “Two of Us,” which represents France in the international feature film race at the Oscars and is part of 15 shortlisted films.Headlined by Martine Chevallier and Barbara Sukowa, the Golden Globe-nominated feature debut follows Nina and Madeleine, two pensioners who have hidden their deep and passionate love for many decades and see their bond put to the test when they are

Anna Marie de la Fuente Chile scored twice at this year’s Oscars derby with Maite Alberdi’s genre-bending documentary “The Mole Agent.” For a Chilean film to be shortlisted for both the International Feature Film and Documentary categories is unprecedented.

Horror is woven into political drama in La Llorona, the riveting Golden Globe Foreign Language Film nominee and shortlisted International Feature Oscar contender from Guatemala’s Jayro Bustamante. An elderly wealthy man hears ghostly noises in the night.

Norwegian director Maria Sodhal made her first feature, Limbo, a decade ago and her second makes the reason for the long time gap dramatically clear: She developed lung cancer, which then metastasized and spread to her brain, a virtual death sentence. But she fought back and lived to make a film about it, the closely observed Hope, which is all she had going for her as she faced almost certain oblivion.

Emilio Mayorga Barcelona-based film-TV studio Filmax has acquired international sales rights to Cesc Gay’s new comedy “Stories Not to Be Told,” which is currently shooting.Filmax will also handle Spanish distribution to the latest outing from Gay, whose 2021 Goya Awards contender “The People Upstairs,” has sold to major territories in Europe and North America.Written by Gay and regular co-scribe Tomás Aragay “(“In The City,” “Truman”), Gay’s ninth feature is produced by Marta Esteban at

Clayton Davis Variety's Awards Circuit is home to the official predictions for the upcoming Oscars from Film Awards Editor Clayton Davis. Following Academy Awards history, buzz, news, reviews and sources, the Oscar predictions are updated regularly with the current year's contenders in all categories.

Read the guide to the shortlisted short documentaries here.“Burrow” (Pixar)“Burrow” Director: Madeline Sharafian The first of two Pixar films on the shortlist is a guided tour of all the things that live underground, courtesy of a rabbit who is looking for his own home.

Also Read: Pedro Almodóvar and Pixar's First Gay Hero Story Make Oscar Shortlists for Short FilmsThe film is written by Jesse Andrews and Mike Jones and produced by Andrea Warren (“Lava,” “Cars 3”). For now, “Luca” is slated to open on June 18, 2021, and it will do so in theaters.

Sue Kim, director of an Oscar-shortlisted short documentary about competitive Rubik’s Cubers, can solve a complex storytelling puzzle in under 40 minutes.

Majid Majidi has been making sensitive and trenchant films about kids in Iran for three decades and he’s still doing it in Sun Children (Khorshid), a shrewdly observed humanistic drama about some young teens scrambling to make their way in a difficult world.

EXCLUSIVE: MTV Documentary Films is adding Skye Fitzgerald’s Hunger Ward to its portfolio of Oscar-contending films.

A prisoner becomes a storyteller in Night Of The Kings, Ivory Coast’s vivid International Feature Oscar shortlist selection written and directed by Philippe Lacôte (Run). Newcomer Bakary Koné stars as a pickpocket who arrives at La MACA, a notorious prison in the Ivorian forest.

Final exams have rarely taken a heavier toll than they do in Better Days, an arresting teen-oriented story that cranks Chinese scholastic competitiveness into the realm of murderous melodrama.

Italy’s Piedmont region is a country for old men, to judge from the new documentary The Truffle Hunters.

Neon’s boutique label Super Ltd has picked up North American rights to buzzy Bosnian drama Quo Vadis, Aida?, which is on this year’s shortlist for the International Oscar.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today is widely acknowledged as a hero, a martyr in the long struggle to end racial prejudice and inequality in America.

People are talking about H.E.R., who recently rocked Super Bowl LV with a soulful rendition of "America the Beautiful" (with a guitar solo that would have made Prince smile) and whose groovy throwback "Fight for You" can be heard in Warner Bros.' Judas and the Black Messiah, about the 1969 police assassination of Black Panthers leader Fred Hampton.

Next time someone asks what’s good on Netflix, you might want to point them to this winner that’s been lurking there since January 2020. A victor at the Golden Horse Awards and now shortlisted for the International Feature Film Oscar, A Sun is a bold, involving tale of crime, punishment, tragedy and healing — all within a seemingly ordinary family of four in Taiwan.