American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has recently published the pre-nominations in the best foreign language film category. Out of a total of 76 non-American films, as many as 37 European national productions have been selected. In the following three months, the list of 76 films will drop to 9, out of which the 5 nominees will be selected.
The last year’s Zagreb Film Festival line-up screened two candidates: the Swedish A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, directed by the surrealist master Roy Andersson, and the Austrian family horror Goodnight, Mommy, directorial debut by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala.
A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting Existence, the winner of Golden Lion in Venice, the greatest acknowledgment in legendary Swedish director Roy Andersson’s career, is an absurd, surreal, dark humoured comedy set somewhere between laughter and tears. The Austrian horror Goodnight, Mommy is first of all an eerie portrait of a family in crisis. This film debut by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala was produced by their famous mentor Ulrich Seidl, and it screened at acclaimed festivals like Toronto, Venice and Sitges. In the directors’ words, this is more than anything a film about the power of children over their parents, expressed in a way to make the audience shudder, swear and scream.
The director of this year’s Romanian Oscar candidate Aferim!, Radu Jude, is a well-known and award-winning ZFF guest. For his first film The Happiest Girl in the World he won ZFF 2009 special mention, and his film Everybody in Our Family won the Golden Pram in 2012 for best feature film of the 10th Zagreb Film Festival.
This year’s Oscar award ceremony is scheduled for 14 February 2016 at the Dolby Studio in Los Angeles.