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Why International Features Earn More Oscar Nominations Across All Categories and Why That Matters
Why international features earn more Oscar nominations across all categories and why that matters.
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A musical about crimes and identity; a searing drama about political and familial oppression; another about an activist searching for her missing husband; documentaries about sexual assault as told by the victim, about undoing centuries of imperialism and about Israelâs brutal treatment of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank; and a beautiful and wordless animated film about animals cooperating to survive after a flood.
These movies â double Golden Globe winner âEmilia PĂŠrez,â âSeed of the Sacred Fig,â âIâm Still Here,â âBlack Box Diaries,â âDahomey,â âNo Other Landâ and Globe winner âFlowâ â have two things in common: They were all made overseas and theyâre all generating legitimate Oscar buzz beyond the international feature film category.
Sure, some films and filmmakers have always broken through that barrier: Fellini, Truffaut, Bergman and some of their peers in Italy, France and Sweden earned directing and writing nominations, while actors like Sophia Loren and Liv Ullman got nods too. (In 1998, Fernanda Montenegro became the first Brazilian actress nominated for lead actress, for Walter Sallesâ âCentral Stationâ; while she has a cameo in Sallesâ âIâm Still Here,â her daughter, Fernanda Torres, is in the lead actress race her starring role in the film.)
Popular on VarietyThings shifted a bit at the start of the 21st century with âCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragonâ and the rise of Pedro AlmodĂłvar, whose films have earned nominations for score, screenplay and actors like Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem. But the floodgates opened in 2018 with âRomaâ (nominated for nine awards outside international feature, winning director and cinematography Oscars) and the following year with âParasiteâ (nominated for five others, winning best picture, director and screenplay).
Now international films are regularly earning nominations in cinematography (six times since 2018) and even makeup (four times) and visual effects (the last two years, for the first time ever). There have been seven screenplays nominated across the two groups and that doesnât even acknowledge the way lines have blurred in recent years, with American films like âMinariâ and âPast Livesâ that are heavily subtitled. Those films, along with âRomaâ and âParasite,â also represent the new diversity looking beyond Western Europe. (International documentaries have regularly earned nominations but there has been a notable uptick, with 14 nominations in last five years.)
Some of this shift comes from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences creating a younger and more diverse membership, but it was aided by the organizationâs outreach to voters emphasizing that these films are eligible across all categories. (And while smaller films were once limited to festivals and arthouses in big cities, voters can now easily watch everything at home if need be.)
âIt was inspiring to see what happened with âParasite,â and that triggered a democratization of possibilities,â says Salles, who adds that streaming helped change perceptions, with audiences showing an appetite for foreign-language films (and TV series like âSquid Gamesâ) with subtitles. âItâs always better when a field becomes more polyphonic and more diverse,â he says.
Latvian Gints Zilbalodis, director of âFlow,â says filmmaking is âless centralized now.â
Technological advances âmade it easier to make films in places where there isnât a big industry,â he adds, noting that his crew created âour own industry just to make this film.â
âWhen youâre making something from scratch youâre not bound to tradition and youâre forced to come up with original ways of telling stories â itâs not just the different types of stories but how theyâre being told,â he says, adding that audiences and voters now seem ready for these different voices and fresh takes.
âDahomeyâ director Mati Diop adds that âthere are now more voices from different parts of the world,â noting that many, like her, belong to both Western and non-Western cultures. âWe have the storytelling and industrial tools of the Western world and more directors are using the tools of cinema to reveal stories from a post-colonial viewpoint, to shine light on communities that had fewer possibilities to express themselves.â
Not all communities can easily express themselves, of course. Palestinian Basel Adra was beaten by Israelis while filming for âNo Other Land,â and âSeed of the Sacred Figâ director Mohammad Rasoulof had to flee Iran to avoid arrest for his anti-regime work. (The film even incorporates real footage of authorities beating citizens.) The film is mostly German financed, so its German producers lobbied their home country to select the film.
Rasoulof hopes for further changes to allow for more Oscar consideration for films like his. âIâm sure itâs not easy to come up with a new system that allows them to really assess all films from all countries,â he says. âBut itâs so important because many filmmakers in so many countries are taken out of the equation, and I donât think we can allow the mechanisms of censorship to oppress artistic freedom.â
Nominations are vital for more than just the gratification that comes with recognition. They bring viewers to small films that otherwise easily get lost in the ceaseless flow of content.
âNominations give an opportunity for films like these to just be seen because itâs hard to compete with these huge studios and the big marketing campaigns they have,â says Zilbalodis, adding that a nomination can help an independent filmmaker get their next project off the ground.
âNominations bring more light to the film and more audiences to get into the conversation,â Diop says. âThe goal is always about visibility and raising awareness.â
Says Adra about âNo Other Landâ: âBeing nominated or winning the Oscar will make sure our story is known.â He and co-director Yuval Abraham note that its anti-Israeli content has made finding U.S. distribution difficult, but Oscar attention could change that. (Abraham especially wants American audiences to see the film because âthe bulldozers destroying Baselâs community are made in the U.S. and the soldiers guarding them are using weapons funded by the U.S, so our documentary is not made in the U.S. but it is in a way responding to U.S. foreign policy.â)
Adra adds, however, that he started filming originally just to document the injustices as evidence â âthe camera is maybe the only tool we have besides our steadfastnessâ â and that the film has already achieved âbig successâ beyond his dreams. âWe wish millions more will see it and the Oscar would make the success even bigger but if it doesnât happen, I will not be sad.â
Abraham adds that if theyâre nominated, theyâll be âon top of the world for a nightâ but then they will immediately have to âget back to the struggle and to reality. We have no illusion that itâll change everything. We will continue to do our work on the ground.â
Rasoulof says thereâs symbolic value in any nominations too. âTheyâd not only ensure these films reach a larger audience but also give an amazing signal to the many filmmakers across the world working under similar circumstances, under similar duress: âWe see you now.ââ
In an era of closing borders and rising xenophobia, especially in the U.S. after an election that revolved around those issues, the filmmakers say nominations for international films are a hopeful sign.
âCulture can unite us,â Zilbalodis says. We can see ourselves while experiencing these stories and see how we are maybe more similar than we are not to these other people.â
Salles agrees, saying he became a filmmaker in part because âcinema was about discovering what I didnât know about; it allowed me to understand the world was much wider than I ever thought it could be.â
Movies, like books and music, he says, are âgreat instruments for opening the possibilities to understanding human nature. And at the end of the day, we need that to get out of the political mess that we are in.â
