Oscars Shortlist: Best Foreign Language Film

Agnieszka Holland’s latest film In Darkness makes the Oscars shortlist for Best Foreign-Language Film.  Holland is the only female director on the shortlist of nine feature films.

Amongst the shortlist are four films from Europe, one film from North America, two films from the Middle East, one film from Asia and one film from Africa.  Writer-directors seemed to be the multi-hyphenate celebre of the shortlist this year. Almost every film had a writer-director.

In key creative roles (writing, direction, cinematography, editing) only Pina was photographed by a woman: Hélène Louvart, while Omar Killed Me was edited by Monica Coleman, A Separation was edited by Hayedeh Safiyari, and Footnote was edited by Einat Glaser-Zarhin.  For some great background on the Oscars submissions for foreign language films and the women who directed them, check out Marian Evans’s “Women directors in Foreign Language Academy Award submissions” article and trailers over at her Wellywoodwoman blog.

Belgium – Bullhead (Michael R. Roskam, dir.)

Canada – Monsieur Lazhar (Philippe Falardeau, dir.)

Denmark – Superclasico (Ole Christian Madsen, dir.)

Germany – Pina (Wim Wenders, dir.)

Iran – A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, dir.)

Israel – Footnote (Joseph Cedar, dir.)

Morocco – Omar Killed Me (Roschdy Zem, dir.)

Poland – In Darkness (Agnieszka Holland, dir.)

Taiwan – Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale (Wei Te-sheng, dir.)

Trailer for Agnieszka Holland’s In Darkness

 

Sundance Diaries

Huffington Post is doing a great series this month on the 64 short films selected to screen at the Sundance Film Festival this year.  Titled Sundance Diaries, the filmmakers themselves write diary entries talking about their experiences making their films and getting the notification from Sundance that they’d been selected. The festival officially kicks off tomorrow and runs for about 10 days.  I’ll have consistent Sundance coverage throughout the next week and half.  Check out some diaries from women filmmakers:

Kataneh Vahdani – “Avocados”

Julia Pott – “Belly”

Kelly Sears – “Once It Started It Could Not End Otherwise”

Jessie Ennis – “The Arm” (directed with Brie Larson and Sarah Ramos)

Jill Soloway – “Una Hora Por Favora”

Kat Candler – “Hellion”

 

Full list of Sundance Diaries entries at Huffington Post.