The campaigns for the Oscar for international feature film are gaining momentum, with final submissions due by Oct. 1. The Oscars shortlists will be revealed on Dec. 15, with 15 international films selected to be voted on by Academy members in all branches who commit to watch all 15 films. Oscar nominations will be revealed on Jan. 21.
This year’s entries include titles like Romania’s “Fjord,” which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes; Chile’s “The Meltdown,” which screened in Un Certain Regard; and Germany’s “Everytime,” which won Cannes’ Un Certain Regard prize. France has not yet submitted a film, but faces several disparate choices. Meanwhile, a new Academy rule allows any film that wins the top prize at one of the six biggest festivals — Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Sundance, Busan and Toronto — to be entered in the international feature race even without a national committee’s backing.
The film premiered in the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d’Or for best film, the FIPRESCI Prize, the Ecumenical Jury Prize, the Prix de la Citoyenneté and the François Chalais Prize. Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve star in the lead roles, with cinematography by Tudor Vladimir Panduru, editing by Mircea Olteanu, and production design by Simona Pădurețu. The film was selected by the Irish Film & TV Academy (IFTA) and a committee including “Evil Dead Rise” director Lee Cronin, “Derry Girls” creator Lisa McGee, BAFTA-nominated director Brian Kirk (“Game of Thrones), BAFTA nominated director Kathryn Ferguson (“Nothing Compares”), Emmy-winning actress and filmmaker Aisha Tyler (“Friends”), actress Fionnuala Flaherty (“Kneecap”) and IFTA chief executive Áine Moriarty.
Told in reverse chronology, “Aontas” follows three unlikely thieves, led by a woman on the verge of a breakdown, who rob a rural Irish bank. Opening in the tragic aftermath of the heist-gone-wrong. What starts as a poorly executed robbery becomes a portrait of a wilful woman trapped in her own past.
It stars Carrie Crowley (“The Quiet Girl “), Bríd Brennan, Eva-Jane Gaffney, Seán T. Ó Meallaigh, Marcus Lamb and Art Parkinson. Chile’s Film Academy has selected “The Meltdown” (“El deshielo”) by Manuela Martelli, her post-Pinochet mystery drama set in an Andes ski resort, to represent the country in the Best International Feature category at the 2027 Academy Awards.
Martelli’s follow-up to her acclaimed drama “Chile, 1976” had its world premiere at Cannes’ prominent strand Un Certain Regard this year. Other cast members are Paulina Urrutia, Mauricio Pešutić, Paula Zúñiga, Marcela Salinas and Lautaro Cantillana. Hamaguchi Ryusuke‘s “All of a Sudden” has been selected as Japan’s entry in the international feature category at the 99th Academy Awards, the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (Eiren) has revealed.
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