With last year’s surprise nominee “The Man Who Sold His Skin” hailing from Tunisia, Oscar handicappers should be sure to give West Asia and North Africa titles close scrutiny this time around.
Among the 11 submissions are several titles likely to be highly competitive in the international feature category. These include Iran’s social media critique “A Hero” from previous two-time winner Asghar Farhadi; Israel’s “Let It Be Morning”, a wry satire helmed by Eran Kolirin, about a Palestinian village put under military lockdown by the Israeli army; and Lebanon’s “Costa Brava, Lebanon,” a darkly comic commentary on the realities of modern-day Lebanon from feature debutant Mounia Akl.
Although “A Hero” may not be prime Farhadi, it already boasts the Grand Prix from Cannes. The narrative focuses on one of life’s losers, a likeable working-class man who, while on a short furlough from debtors prison, engineers events...
Among the 11 submissions are several titles likely to be highly competitive in the international feature category. These include Iran’s social media critique “A Hero” from previous two-time winner Asghar Farhadi; Israel’s “Let It Be Morning”, a wry satire helmed by Eran Kolirin, about a Palestinian village put under military lockdown by the Israeli army; and Lebanon’s “Costa Brava, Lebanon,” a darkly comic commentary on the realities of modern-day Lebanon from feature debutant Mounia Akl.
Although “A Hero” may not be prime Farhadi, it already boasts the Grand Prix from Cannes. The narrative focuses on one of life’s losers, a likeable working-class man who, while on a short furlough from debtors prison, engineers events...
- 12/13/2021
- by Alissa Simon
- Variety Film + TV
Serious in intent, but melodramatic in style, the patriotic historical saga “Heliopolis” directed by Djaffar Gacem neatly uses the alliances of a fictional Muslim family to explicate events leading up to the brutal killings of indigenous Algerian civilians and the summary execution of native political leaders by French settler militias and soldiers in 1945. Algeria’s submission for the international feature Oscar is highly effective in showing the tensions between those who believed indigenous Algerians and French colonists would someday be treated equally under the French flag and those who pushed for the country’s independence. It also clearly presents the growing strain between the colonized and the colonists, albeit with a lot less subtlety.
In 1940, the Muslim Zenati family operates a successful wheat farming estate in Heliopolis that is the envy of the French colonial farmers in the Guelma district. Wary patriarch Mokdad, a widower and WWI French army veteran,...
In 1940, the Muslim Zenati family operates a successful wheat farming estate in Heliopolis that is the envy of the French colonial farmers in the Guelma district. Wary patriarch Mokdad, a widower and WWI French army veteran,...
- 11/17/2021
- by Alissa Simon
- Variety Film + TV
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