Nominations voting is from January 11-16, 2024, with official Oscar nominations announced January 23, 2024. Final voting is February 22-27, 2024. And finally, the 96th Oscars telecast will be broadcast on Sunday, March 10 and air live on ABC at 8:00 p.m. ET/ 5:00 p.m. PT. We update predictions through awards season, so keep checking IndieWire for all our 2024 Oscar picks.
The State of the Race
Most early contenders in the race for the Best International Feature Film Oscar break out of film festivals. Of last year’s Oscar nominees, “The Quiet Girl” debuted in Berlin; “Close” and “EO” won prizes at Cannes, including the shared Grand Prix and Jury Prize, respectively; “Argentina 1985” premiered in Venice; and the eventual winner, “All Quiet on the Western Front,” debuted at Toronto.
This year’s early field includes festival hits that have not yet been submitted by their individual countries. Since the award was created in 1956, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences invites each country’s film industry to submit their selection for the Academy Award for what is now called Best International Feature Film. For the 96th Academy Awards, the submitted motion pictures must first open in theaters in their respective countries between December 1, 2022, and October 31, 2023. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2, 2023.
The movie must contain primarily non-English dialogue, which raises the question of whether Justine Triet’s “Anatomy of a Fall” (Neon), France’s Palme d’Or winner starring Sandra Huller, will be eligible: Much of it is in English as well as French. Sharing the Cannes runner-up Grand Jury Prize was British director Jonathan Glazer’s German-language holocaust film “The Zone of Interest” (A24), also starring Huller, which may be submitted by the UK. Beating out Cannes Best Actor winner Wim Wenders’ “Perfect Days” was German entry “The Teacher’s Lounge” (Sony Pictures Classics), which debuted in Berlin and swept the German Film Awards.
Also playing the fall festivals is Aki Kaurismäki’s romantic comedy “Fallen Leaves,” which won the 2023 Cannes jury prize and is a likely submission for Finland. Another possible French submission is Vietnamese-born Tràn Anh Hùng’s period food drama “The Taste of Things” (originally “The Pot-Au-Feu”) starring Juliette Binoche, which took home the Cannes Best Director prize. But there are many French candidates, including Oscar-nominated Ladj Ly’s new film “Les Indesirables,” which is seeking a buyer at the fall festivals.
Hitting the fall festivals are Pawo Choyning Dorji’s first fiction feature, sales title “The Monk and the Gun,” which is a follow-up to his Oscar-nominated debut “Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom”; and Oscar-nominated “A Royal Affair” auteur Nicolaj Arcel’s “The Promised Land” (Magnolia Pictures), starring Mads Mikkelsen as a rugged veteran trying to tame the harsh Danish heath and pull himself up into the noble classes.
Contenders for the shortlist of 15 are listed in alphabetical order below. No film will be deemed a frontrunner until I have seen it. * titles have not been submitted by their country as yet.
Frontrunners
“Anatomy of a Fall” (Justine Triet, France)*
“Les Indesirables” (Ladj Ly, France)*
“The Monk and the Gun” (Pawo Choyning Dorji, Bhutan)*
“The Promised Land” (Nikolaj Arcel, Denmark)*
“The Teachers’ Lounge” (İlker Çatak, Germany)
Contenders
“Concrete Utopia” (Um Tae-hwa, South Korea)
“The Erection of Toribio Bardell” (Adrián Saba, Peru)
“Fallen Leaves” (Aki Kaurismäki, Finland)*
“Family Album” (Guillermo Rocamora, Uruguay)
“Melody” (Behrouz Sebt Rasoul, Tajikistan)
“Rojek” (Zaynê Akyol, Canada)
“The Settlers” (Felipe Gálvez Haberle, Chile)
“Shayda” (Noora Niasari, Australia)
“Smoke Sauna Sisterhood” (Võro Anna Hints, Estonia)
“The Taste of Things” (France)*
“Thunder” (Carmen Jaquier, Switzerland
“The Zone of Interest” (Jonathan Glazer, UK)
Source: www.indiewire.com