Every year Turner Classic Movies gets home audiences in an Oscar state of mind with its annual “31 Days of Oscar” showcase. Held every February, it’s a month-long celebration of Oscar-winning films leading up to the annual Academy Awards ceremony, and this year, the showcase will kick off with the premiere of a brand new documentary about the awards’ 85 years of history. It’s called, what else… “Oscar.”

Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (whose 1989 film “Common Threads: Stories from the Quilt” took home the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature), “Oscar” will feature interviews with many Academy Award-winning and nominated actors and actresses including Annette Bening, Ellen Burstyn, Cher, George Clooney, Benicio Del Toro, Whoopi Goldberg, Tom Hanks, Jennifer Hudson, Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren and more. Filmmakers and producers featured include Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Freida Lee Mock, Michael Moore, Jason Reitman and Phil Alden Robinson.

Thankfully, below the line contributors aren’t forgotten in all of this, as cinematographers (Janusz Kaminski), editors (Kirk Baxter), costume designers (Jeannine Claudia Oppewall, Jeffrey Kurland), makeup artists (Ve Neill), visual effects artists (Craig Barron) and sound engineers (Ben Burtt) are all on the role call of interviewees.

It promises to be a spectacular, definitive piece of work, and TCM is the natural place to debut the film.

“We”re delighted to partner with TCM on this extraordinary 85-year history of the Academy Awards,” said Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs. “Rob and Jeffrey are in the midst of producing a fantastic showcase of special Oscar moments that will take audiences on a memorable cinematic journey.”

“I can think of no better way to celebrate more than 85 years of Oscar than by telling the story of the Academy Awards,” said Jeff Gregor, general manager of TCM and chief marketing officer for TCM, TNT and TBS. “And there’s no network that can tell that story like TCM. We’re proud to make the February 2014 premiere of ‘Oscar’ the centerpiece of TCM’s annual 31 Days of Oscar, where it will be surrounded by a carefully curated lineup of more than 300 Academy Award-winning and nominated films.”

So be sure to check out “Oscar” when it premieres on Turner Classic Movies on Feb. 1. It will be one of several major programming events leading up to TCM’s 20th anniversary in April 2014 (when the annual TCM Film Festival hits Hollywood once again).

What a difference a week makes…

This time seven days ago we were telling you about a delayed “Wolf of Wall Street” from Martin Scorsese (tipping off trades to sniff it out on their end and write a version without crediting the original story, natch). Within days, “Foxcatcher” would take its leave, joining “Grace of Monaco” on that score. The season, as it always does, is changing shape.

Many are waiting for the other shoe to drop on the Scorsese while others are ready to go ahead and just call it “officially” out of the season, but the fact is, that’s not the case…yet. Christmas is the aim. Red Granite, the film’s financiers, would certainly like it out sooner rather than later but the studio is happy to let it come when it comes: they aren’t going to sour the relationship with this filmmaker.

So whatever version Scorsese and his producers settle on, whatever length and for whatever reason, I think we can all agree we’d like him to have the time to find it and that he’s earned the right to decide when that time is up; it goes without saying. But all of this uncertainty is probably making some longer-lead coverage interesting at a few outlets. The revolving door on talent roundtables must be dizzying, but this is way inside baseball. It doesn’t matter.

I’m bummed that I’ll have to wait for “Foxcatcher” because that leaked teaser trailer promised something complex and layered, not so easily boiled down to a common denominator. It certainly was a threat to an already crowded field, so I imagine many campaigns, including some happening under the same Sony roof, are relieved it’s out of the way. “Grace of Monaco” would seemingly have afforded some breathing room in a pretty tight Best Actress race, but was Nicole Kidman ever really going to figure in there? We won’t know this year.

None of this is game-changing for this particular race, though. Pieces are always moving in and out of place for any number of reasons. But the media, again, is paying extra close attention this season. After all, they’re collectively invested now. Oh, didn’t you hear? “12 Years a Slave” won the Best Picture Oscar four weeks ago.

I kid.

But yes, the shifting and sliding provides hope for other films that would have a legitimate bead on Best Picture. “Dallas Buyers Club” is a film near the top of that list for me, an emotional portrait that is also of the zeitgeist in a very big way. It should be required viewing for clowns like Ted Cruz. While the film is very much a snapshot of an era, a deadly epidemic and the culture to which it laid siege, it is also about empathy and the health care debate. “People are dying” should be the campaign’s rally cry. It’s good enough to be a Best Picture nominee and may generate the kind of passion votes necessary to get it there.

The “Foxcatcher” move leaves Sony Classics with a pair of summer indies that can enjoy a more focused campaign now: “Before Midnight” and “Blue Jasmine.” Michael Barker and Tom Bernard appear to be higher on the prospects for the latter, the widest release a Woody Allen movie has seen with a stunning Cate Blanchett performance that will help lead the way. I just wish we were talking about the former in those terms, a landmark in American cinema with a stunning Julie Delpy performance leading the way. I’d also like to see Jeff Nichols’ “Mud” from Roadside Attractions re-insinuated in the conversation as these things fall away.

But in the meantime, I myself have gotten my first look at a few other pieces of the puzzle, both of them Weinstein entries that have an angle on the Best Picture race. Neither is a solid gold prospect, and that’s certainly been a “story” to those interested. “Harvey just doesn’t have anything this year” is something I hear a lot, sometimes doused in schadenfreude, sometimes in mere curiosity and surprise. Moving out “Grace of Monaco” (and, through the RADiUS-TWC shingle, “The Immigrant”) may or may not have tipped that it wasn’t awards material, but what’s qualifiable is it provided the opportunity to focus within Weinstein’s slate.

In “August: Osage County,” we certainly have a contender. But first, my take, to get it out of the way: Meryl Streep devours the screenplay, the set decoration and her co-stars, and that wasn’t, to me, the best choice here. Yes, Violet Weston is a character given to flair, but the process of popping a pill and swallowing it has never been so histrionic. I came away more appreciative of deeper choices from character actors like Chris Cooper and Margo Martindale than I did Streep’s grandstanding (and Julia Roberts’ desperation to register next to Streep when not otherwise more evenly feeling her way through her role). That and some other broad choices made the film a bit of a sledgehammer, unable to linger.

That said, actors, I think, will answer the call to worship here. Writers will appreciate that even the boldest of interpretations can’t smother what’s masterful on the page. And the campaign will look to those branches to help carry the way. But I don’t see the exclusive directors branch speaking up and I don’t expect to see much attention paid below the line (even if the photography and particularly the editing are deceptive in their modesty).

Stephen Frears’ “Philomena,” meanwhile, perplexes with its Venice screenplay win because on the page is where it feels most lost. Structurally, tonally, it’s a bit unsure of itself. It connects here and there along a spectrum but really finds emotion and thematic grace when it drills down. It’s the kind of film that will play well on a screener (as will “August”) and it could show up big enough in the major races to be a Best Picture player — or it could be just a vehicle for a Judi Dench nod. Or, frankly, the softer elements could make the whole thing feel a trifle, with the Golden Globes as its last hurrah. I’ll be interested to hear further reactions from guilds, etc., because (and I don’t mind saying) I’m not entirely sure yet how it will land.

Meanwhile, the New York Film Festival forges ahead. “Captain Phillips” couldn’t have landed better, particularly after the strategy to screen for press at the start of Toronto was met with more muted reaction than I imagine Scott Rudin and company would have liked. (Note: I wasn’t muted. I loved it.) It has seen its official launch in the Big Apple, will see its premiere tonight at the Academy and is very much a major player in this race now.

Elsewhere, “Inside Llewyn Davis” continues the long play, bringing more critics to its cause (I expect it to do well along their awards circuit). It’s another film that certainly benefits from some breathing room in the season. We’ll know within the next two weeks how films like “The Book Thief,” “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and “Her” (which you’ll soon learn received a helping hand from an Oscar-winning director) fit into all of this.

On a personal note, you may have read about that humbling honor I received from the International Cinematographers Guild last week. I just want to say something that didn’t make it into my speech Friday afternoon, which is that it could not have meant more coming from anyone else. We’ve always made it a mandate to educate and illuminate, certainly to celebrate, below the line contributions to cinema here at In Contention, and to be recognized along those lines was a huge thrill. I share the honor unequivocally with the two gentlemen who have shared in that passion these last five or six years and done plenty to help establish that profile: Gerard Kennedy and Guy Lodge.

Alright, enough about us. The Contenders section has been tweaked.

The deadline for Best Foreign Language Film submissions is now one day away. We’re still waiting one some countries (including China), and there are usually a couple of post-deadline stragglers, but it’s fair to say the field — which now numbers 65 films — is close to complete.And it’s a field that just got even more competitive with a flurry of high-profile entries over the weekend, including a couple of Cannes award winners.

Chief among them is Iran’s selection. Having won its first Oscar two years ago with Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation,” and boycotted last year’s competition for political reasons, the country has returned to the race — and to Farhadi — by submitting the director’s French-Italian production “The Past.”

It’s at this point that I have to admit I called this completely wrong. I had initially thought that “The Past” — by virtue of not being an Iranian production itself — would not be eligible to represent Iran, though Academy rules stipulate only that “the submitting country must certify that creative control of the motion picture was largely in the hands of citizens or residents of that country.” I was curious to see if Iran, which had shortlisted eight local productions alongside “The Past,” would effectively punish Farhadi for defecting to work in Europe.

They haven’t, and have probably acted in their own best interests by selecting Farhadi’s Paris-set melodrama. “The Past” may not have been quite as breathlessly acclaimed as “A Separation” upon its Cannes premiere, with some critics likening it to highbrow soap opera, but it’s still a highly Academy-friendly proposition: moving, tasteful and universally relatable, with strong performances from recognizable stars, including recent Oscar nominee Bérénice Bejo.

Sony Pictures Classics will no doubt campaign smartly for the film, and they’re the company you want behind you in this category: they’ve won the award for the past four years running, after all. They also have a strong contender in another Middle Eastern submission, Saudi Arabia’s groundbreaking “Wadjda” — it’s by no means unusual for them to have multiple horses in the final race, so it’ll be interesting to see which film ultimately connects more. 

“The Past” is a film Sony can feasibly campaign in general categories, too, as they did for “Amour” last year. The film likely hasn’t quite the heft or the dazzling reviews necessary to make much headway in the Best Picture race, but Bejo — who won at Cannes for her gutsy performance, and surprised viewers who knew her only for her bubbly (and voiceless) work in “The Artist” — is a legitimate Best Actress prospect. Farhadi, meanwhile, nabbed a Best Original Screenplay nod for “A Separation,” and could do so again, having now gained a lot of fans in the Academy.

Moving on, though remaining in roughly the same area of the map, both Israel and Palestine submitted films over the weekend — and as many critics have already noted, their selections have rather a lot of narrative elements in common. I have yet to see Palestine’s choice, Hany Abu-Assad’s “Omar,” which won the Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard division at Cannes. Reviews have been largely glowing for the tale of a young Palestinian baker drawn into a plot to kill an Israeli soldier, only to be arrested and tortured by Israeli forces who attempt to make him an informant.

Abu-Assad has form when it comes to this kind of touchy subject matter: his film “Paradise Now,” a powerful story of childhood friends turned suicide bombers, was Oscar-nominated in 2005. (Incidentally, the director’s next project is the long-mooted English-language remake of Park Chan-wook’s “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance”: a left turn that will do a lot for his profile.)

Israel, meanwhile, has submitted something of a mirror image to “Omar” in Yuval Adler’s directorial debut “Bethlehem,” a thriller about an Israeli intelligence officer whose relationship with his 17-year-old Palestinian informant spirals dangerously out of control. As usual, the film was automatically selected after winning top honors at Israel’s national Ophir Awards. I saw “Bethelehem” at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month and will be writing a review soon: it’s proficiently, somewhat televisually crafted, but absorbing all the same, and as even-handed as you’d expect from a film with Israeli and Palestinian co-writers.

I’m looking forward to comparing the films once I’ve seen “Omar,” and am intrigued to know what the Academy will make of their similarities. Whatever the films’ relative aesthetic merits, there will inevitably be political insinuations made if one comes out ahead of the other at either the shortlist, nomination or final voting stages. (If only one scores with the general voters, might the executive committee feel compelled to level things out?) Both are reasonable threats for a nomination, having both drawn acclaim at major-league film festivals; Abu-Assad’s previous Oscar success counts in his favor, while Israel has been a favorite of the branch recently, having scored four nominations in the last six years.  

Moving much further eastwards, Cambodia has entered the film that beat “Omar” to the top Un Certain Regard award at Cannes: Rithy Panh’s “The Missing Picture.” The film is an autobiographical documentary hybrid, in which Panh uses combination of archive footage and clay puppetry to depict a childhood spent in various Khmer Rouge labor camps — I’m looking forward to catching up with it at the upcoming London Film Festival. It might be one to keep an eye on: if it’s too tough a sell to the general branch voters, it’s not hard to imagine the executive committee standing up for something that’s both formally unique and historically resonant.

Yet another Un Certain Regard title that joined the race over the weekend comes from Argentina: Lucia Puenzo’s “Wakolda.” (At this stage, there are more submissions from Cannes’ second division than there are from the Competition.) The film finds Puenzo (much acclaimed for her hermaphrodite drama “XXY,” submitted to no avail in 2007) adapting her own novel about the country’s post-WWII history of harboring Nazis, in which a middle-class family unwittingly takes in the Third Reich’s notorious geneticist Josef Mengele. It’s a lurid premise that may fascinate a certain portion of Oscar voters, though critical reaction to the film has been largely tepid. 

Other recent additions to the field: Egypt’s “Winter of Discontent,” Kazakhstan’s “The Old Man” and Lithuania’s “Conversations on Serious Topics,” which, if nothing else, surely boasts the most brazenly Academy-baiting title in this category.

As ever, the comments are open to your insight, information and guesswork. Check out the updated Contenders page here.

Oscar talk is not something you’d expect to surface much at the Zurich Film Festival, but when Harvey Weinstein is giving a masterclass there, it inevitably comes up. Wendy Mitchell reports from the event, where the master awards campaigner declared this year’s Oscar race “the most competitive season I’ve ever seen,” explained the delayed release of “Grace of Monaco” — it’s not ready, he wants it to play festivals and it could be “bigger than ‘My Week With Marilyn'” — and revisited the 15-year-old controversy of “Shakespeare in Love”‘s five Oscar-awarded producers. He also gave a shout-out to his favorite non-Weinstein films of the season so far: “12 Years a Slave,” obviously, but also “Prisoners.” [Screen Daily]

Noel Murray, Keith Phipps and Tasha Robinson evaluate the current, sequel-riddled state of American animation. [The Dissolve]

In honor of the newly departed “Breaking Bad,” Calum Marsh lists seven films that influenced the hit show. You could do worse things right now than watch all of these. [Esquire]

Ari Folman’s live-action/animated hybrid “The Congress” is one of three films nominated for Best Animated Feature at the European Film Awards. [Hollywood Reporter]

Venezuelan film “Bad Hair” won top honors at the San Sebastian Film Festival; Jim Broadbent won Best Actor for “Le Week-End.” [Variety]

Bruce Dern talks “Nebraska,” the project for which he”s patiently waited a lifetime. [Vulture]

In the wake of recent dropouts from the 2013 prestige slate, Nathaniel Rogers asks if October is the new December. [The Film Experience]

NASA astronauts talk “Gravity,” and give it the thumbs-up on the authenticity front. [The Wrap]

Xan Brooks gives the Oscar forecast for “Captain Phillips.” [The Guardian]

On how “Blue is the Warmest Color” and the excellent “Concussion” (out this Friday) bring a fresh perspective on lesbianism in the movies. [New York Times]

The International Cinematographers Guild (ICG) held a celebratory luncheon at the ASC clubhouse today to showcase the winners of the 2013 Emerging Cinematographers Awards. Those honorees will have their work screened during a special ceremony at the DGA Theater on Sunday night. Friday, the guild took a few moments to honor four more experienced gentlemen for their contribution to the cinematic arts at the American Society of Cinematographers Clubhouse in Hollywood.

Mark Weingartner, a DP who has worked on visual effects for films such as “Inception,” “The Dark Knight Rises” and “2012,” was honored with the Canon Award for advancement of digital technology in film and television.

Cinematographer Julio Macat, best known for his work on “Home Alone,” “Wedding Crashers” and “Pitch Perfect,” received the Kodak Mentorship Award. Macat, who was emotionally moved by the recognition, has dedicated a good deal of his free time to mentoring students at Pepperdine, AFI, NYU and Chapman University.

Dr. Corey Carbonara earned the Nat Tiffen Award for education contributions to the art and craft of cinematography.

Last, and certainly not least, HitFix and In Contention’s own Kristopher Tapley was honored with this year’s Technicolor William A. Fraker Award for journalistic contributions to the art and craft of cinematography. Tapley gave a fantastic speech where he humbly acknowledged how, as someone who covers awards season, it was so different to be on the “other side.” As a graduate of the North Carolina School of the Arts and USC, Tapley has worked behind the camera and knows the difficulties of motion picture production. He remarked that’s been a driving force of his dedication to covering below the line talent. In fact, one of his favorite stories to do every year is the top 10 shots of the year, because he gets to chat with such visionaries as Wally Pfister, Roger Deakins and Robert Richardson (among others). Those “celebrities” are much more exciting to him than the traditional big stars in front of the camera.

This year’s emerging cinematographer winners are Eduardo Fierro (“Eleven: Twelve”), Guy Skinner (“Your Father’s Daughter”), Kyle Klutz (“Vessel”), Mike Berlucchi (“140 Drams”), T.J. Williams, Jr. (“The Return”), Michael Alden Lloyd (“The Secret Number”), Camrin Petramale (“Memoirs of a Parapsychologist”) and VanNessa Manlunas (“King of Norway”). Honorable mention went to Rob C. Givens (“The Ride”) and Andrew Shulkind (“South Down Orchard”).

It’s pistols at dawn in the HitFix critical fraternity today. Well, not really, but we can offer you two opposing reviews of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s directorial debut, the sex comedy “Don Jon.” Reviewing out of Sundance (back when the film was called “Don Jon’s Addiction”), I was less than impressed, complaining that the film “[settles] on a laddish archness that undermines the seriousness of the addiction in question.” (I didn’t warm to it on a second look, though Scarlett Johansson’s firecracker performance as a feisty Jersey girl burned even brighter. As I wrote recently, a Best Supporting Actress campaign would not be undeserved.) Drew McWeeny, on the other hand, was wowed at South by Southwest, calling it “sharply written, sharply performed [and] one hell of a debut.” Which one of us do you agree with, or do you fall somewhere in between? Share your thoughts when you’ve seen the film, and be sure to vote in the poll below. 

Mark Harris has been pretty vocal in expressing his disdain for the Oscar buzz that emerged from the echo chamber that is the Toronto Film Festival. Instead, he claims that the awards race really started last week, when audiences were actually able to see two of the awards hopefuls that emerged from the fall festival circuit: Nicole Holofcener’s “Enough Said” and Ron Howard’s “Rush.” (Of course, by that rationale, you may argue that the Oscar race runs all year round.) Anyway, while it’s “Rush” that has enjoyed far more advance buzz, it’s Holofcener’s quiet indie, Harris argues, that emerged victorious in the real world, winning on the critical and commercial front. Will voters see it? “In the case of Rush, it’s Hollywood that tells the world, ‘This is an Academy movie’,” he writes. “In the case of Enough Said, it’s the world that has to tell Hollywood.” [Grantland]

The Academy has made some changes to the voting system in the animated race — Steve Pond examines the specifics. [The Wrap] 

Former Academy president Tom Sherak has been named the new Los Angeles “film czar.” I confess I saw this headline repeated about a dozen times before I actually knew what it meant. [LA Times]

“Fruitvale Station,” which is still unreleased in the UK, will kick off a Screen International showcase of “award-worthy” titles in London. [Screen Daily]

Lovely piece, this: Cicely Tyson and Kerry Washington meet for brunch, and chat across the generations. [New York Times]

Woody Allen talks to Catherine Shoard about gender, samurai auteurism and the accidental topicality of his “shock masterpiece,” “Blue Jasmine.” [The Guardian]

Zachary Wigon explains what filmmakers can learn from the career of artist turned auteur turned current Oscar frontrunner Steve McQueen. [Tribeca Film]

The US poster for “Diana” is better than the British one — though I doubt that will overcome the toxic word from across the pond. [House Next Door]

“Star Wars,” “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and “West Side Story” have been voted Britain’s favorite film soundtracks in a BBC listeners’ poll. [The Independent]

Speaking of “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” that film’s screenwriter Luciano Vincenzoni has passed away aged 87. R.I.P. [The Telegraph]

If you want a press release to land somewhat quietly, drop it at 10:00pm ET. And not that the news of “Foxcatcher” didn’t cause plenty of commotion a few hours ago, but it was obviously a willful decision from Sony Classics to let the news out when they did. I’ve been in screenings all day and just now got back to my desk to assess all of this, but the news is this: Bennett Miller’s latest is officially a 2014 release.

If you’ll recall, a number of months back we said that this could happen. That was back before it was dated, when the worst kept secret was that it was a Sony Classics film and not a Sony film, before the AFI Fest premiere was announced, etc. And now, somewhat uniquely, it all goes away. AFI has a pair of centerpiece screenings it will be announcing shortly (one of them a world premiere), but nevertheless, they can’t be too happy.

We’re left wondering why. Is Miller really still editing, as the press release says? I don’t know. They’ve had a couple of test screenings in Boston and New Jersey, the latter just a couple of weeks ago with a running time of 140 minutes. So it seems like it’s getting there. And the trailer that leaked earlier today sure did present a handsome piece of work that could be an awards play, so I don’t believe any chatter that it’s not an Oscar movie.

Did Big Sony want this one out of the way so that “American Hustle,” “Captain Phillips” and “The Monuments Men” could have a better shot in an already crowded year? Perhaps. I can’t really say. But another one bites the dust after “Grace of Monaco” was pushed by The Weinstein Company. And if “The Wolf of Wall Street” doesn’t make the Christmas date it’s currently aiming for, it could move to next year, too (but you already knew that).

I’m bummed. I can’t wait to see this movie. It looks absolutely fantastic and could have been a major figure in this race. At the same time, again, it’s crowded. Maybe next year will be an easier play.

We say this on an almost annual basis, it seems, but the Best Original Song race is looking particularly lean this year — so lean, in fact, that I can scarcely think of any possibilities, strong or otherwise, from the year’s releases so far. (I know Lana Del Rey’s “Young and Beautiful,” from “The Great Gatsby,” has a lot of advocates out there, but it seems the song won’t be eligible.) But one interesting possibility, and one the film’s publicists seem willing to push, comes from recent indie favorite “Short Term 12.” 

Destin Daniel Cretton’s intimate drama, set in a shelter for troubled teenagers, has been one of the critical darlings of the summer. I’m not quite as breathless as some of my colleagues about the film — it’s tender and affecting, but also cautious, tethered to its familiarly beige indie aesthetic — but it’s a promising showcase for pretty much everyone involved. Awards-wise, most of the talk has centered on Brie Larson’s excellent performance as a care worker with her own demons to confront; an Oscar nomination is a tough target, but she’s a cinch for an Independent Spirit nod, at least.

Leading lady aside, the most individual praise has been heaped upon 22-year-old Keith Stanfield, a relative newcomer whose performance as Larson’s most haunted, volatile young charge provides the film with its most electrifying moments. Chief among those is a scene wherein the kid delivers a 90-second freestyle rap that articulates much of the pain and emotionally scarring abuse that has led him to this point; titled “So You Know What It’s Like,” the expletive-filled track was written by Stanfield himself with Cretton, and is wholly original and integral to the film.

I suppose some in the Academy’s music branch may struggle to see the brief, minimally arranged interlude as a fully-fledged song — even if they have embraced hip-hop music in the past, with wins for Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” in 2002, and Three 6 Mafia’s “Hard Out Her For a Pimp” in 2005. Still, if you’re looking for an original composition, performed within the framework of the film and with strong narrative significance — usually pluses with this voting group — you’d be hard pressed to find many better examples from 2013 so far. Is this one she should be looking out for? Check out the clip below and tell us what you think.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErLtUR_lN8E?rel=0&w=640&h=360]

Denmark may have teased out the process somewhat by releasing a shortlist of potential submissions, but there was never much doubt over what film they’d ultimately choose to represent them in the race for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. And so it was confirmed today: Thomas Vinterberg’s moral melodrama “The Hunt,” which premiered at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, is the Danish hopeful. And one with good reason to be hopeful, at that; I’m hardly alone in thinking we could be looking at our winner here.

Do I slightly wish the Danes had thrown us a curveball and submitted Joshua Oppenheimer’s striking documentary “The Act of Killing” instead? Sure, but then I’ve already said that I personally find “The Hunt” a superficial and disingenuous piece of work. But there’s no denying Denmark has acted in their own best interests by selecting Vinterberg’s film, which has any number of factors in its favor: Cannes award credibility, a keen critical following, an internationally recognized star in Mads Mikkelsen and an effectively button-pushing narrative that I expect will work its spell on general branch voters. (If your memory needs jogging, Mikkelsen plays an honorable schoolteacher falsely accused of sexual abuse by one of his pupils.)There are never any sure things in this category, but it’d be a major surprise if “The Hunt” doesn’t wind up with a nomination.

Denmark has fared well in this category recently. Three years ago, Susanne Bier’s “In a Better World” — a film I’d argue is very much of a piece with “The Hunt” — won the country its third Oscar, and its first since “Babette’s Feast” and “Pelle the Conqueror” scored back-to-back wins in the 1980s. Two years ago, breezy romantic comedy “SuperClásico” made the nine-film shortlist, and was reportedly popular with the general voters. And last year, the intelligent costume drama “A Royal Affair” unsurprisingly notched up a nomination.

“A Royal Affair,” of course, also starred Mikkelsen, who also featured in Denmark’s 2006 nominee “After the Wedding.” The actor has become something of a global ambassador for the Danish industry, and his publicity will be key to “The Hunt”‘s campaign. It helps that his strong performance, which won Best Actor at Cannes last year, is admired even by most of the film’s detractors admire. A while back, I wondered whether he could crack the Best Actor race, much as Javier Bardem did for Mexican entry “Biutiful” — the field is probably too crowded, with Magnolia campaigning too little, for that possibility to pan out, but his performance will nonetheless be an abetting factor in the foreign-language race, 

This is Vinterberg’s second time representing Denmark in the Oscar race, and a chance for the Academy to make amends after rather controversially failing to nominate his 1998 breakthrough “The Celebration,” after it dominated the critics’ awards and scored a Golden Globe nod. An Oscar now would certainly be a well-timed profile-booster for Vinterberg, with his Fox Searchlight-backed, Carey Mulligan-starring take on “Far From the Madding Crowd” due for release next year. 

For “The Hunt,” the Oscar campaign will be the last stage in an awards run that has been spread over two years. in 2012, it received five top European Film Award nominations, winning Best Screenplay. It did well in the UK, too, landing a BAFTA nod and winning Best Foreign Film at the British Independent Film Awards, while Mikkelsen scored a Best Actor nod from the London Film Critics’ Circle.

Crossing from Cannes 2012 to Cannes 2013, Italy surprised nobody by selecting Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty” as their submission this year. The film — a visually extravagant, Fellini-referencing ode to modern-day Rome in all its corrupt splendor — found an ardent critical following at Cannes. (Again, I wasn’t quite on board.) Steven Spielberg’s jury was evidently less bowled over, as it left the festival empty-handed.

My gut feeling is that the branch’s reaction will be closer to that of Team Spielberg: it’s an impressive, swaggering piece of filmmaking, but narratively oblique and emotionally remote. The executive committee might stand up for it, though they might in turn be turned off by its razzle-dazzle. I wonder if Italy might have given themselves a better chance with a lower-profile Cannes title, Valeria Golino’s touching euthanasia drama “Honey.”

Somewhat surprisingly, considering the lofty position Sorrentino holds in contemporary Italian cinema, this is the first time he’s represented his country in the Oscar race. Italy still holds the record for most wins in this category, but their Midas touch has worn off in recent years: it’s eight years since their last nomination (for Cristina Comencini’s “Don’t Tell”), and 15 since their last win (for Roberto Benigni’s “Life is Beautiful”). None of their last five submissions has made the pre-nomination shortlist, despite such high-profile picks as “Gomorrah” and last year’s Golden Bear winner “Caesar Must Die.”

Also joining the race in the last two days: Spain’s “15 Years and One Day,” which won top honors at the Malaga Spanish Film Festival and stars the excellent Maribel Verdu (who also starred in last year’s submission, “Blancanieves”);  Slovenia’s “Class Enemy,” a recent Venice entry; Lebanon’s “Ghadi”; and Peru’s “The Cleaner.” As ever, the insight of our international readers is welcome.

Check out the updated Contenders page here.

I’ll be attending the European Film Awards once more in December, and one of several good reasons to do so is that Catherine Deneuve will be in attendance. The French legend has been announced as the recipient of this year’s EFA Lifetime Achievement Award. Hard to argue with that: from “Repulsion” to “Belle de Jour” to “Dancer in the Dark,” Deneuve is an art house icon whose career spans multiple nations and generations. (No one else, after all, can claim to have worked with Bunuel, Polanski, Truffaut, von Trier and Ryan Murphy.) I’ve long argued that she should be near the top of the Academy’s honorary Oscar list, not least since her lone Oscar nod (for “Indochine”) hardly even represents a career high. Also receiving an honorary award at the ceremony will be Pedro Almodovar; shouldn’t those two have collaborated by now? [EFA]

Joe Reid and a group of contributors rank Ron Howard’s filmography from best to worst. [Tribeca Film]

Daniel Montgomery notes that three of the last four Best Cinematography winners have been 3D spectacles. Will “Gravity” continue the trend? I think (and hope) so. [Gold Derby]

Nathaniel Rogers on a Best Supporting Actress race made up of blonde bombshells and character actors. [The Film Experience]

Jennifer Lawrence is reuniting with her “Hunger Games” director Gary Ross for a new adaptation of “East of Eden.” (No, she’s not playing the James Dean role.) [Variety]

Manohla Dargis on a New York Film Festival lineup that seems designed to up the entertainment factor. [New York Times]

Will Forte, the less-discussed star of “Nebraska,” hosts a screening of the film in LA. [LA Times]

How two seemingly unrelated Oscar hopefuls, “Wadjda” and “Fruitvale Station,” prove the value of keeping things small. [The Dissolve]

On why studios are beginning to shy away from formula-based romantic comedies. [The Hollywood Reporter]

It’s clearly the week for directors to lay into their leading ladies. Paul Schrader attacks Lindsay Lohan for her failure to support “The Canyons.” [The Guardian]

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4912108337001

TORONTO – Kate Winslet is very pregnant. Chances are when you’re reading this she’s still very pregnant. Moreover, Winslet is so far along that we may not catch the Oscar winner on the awards circuit until very close to the December release of her new film “Labor Day.” In fact, she may not be able to promote the film again until 2014. That obviously made a chance to chat with her at the Toronto International Film Festival a major priority.

Granted, this year’s crowded Best Actress field is slowly getting a tad less competitive (ergo Naomi Watts in the critically drubbed “Diana,” Nicole Kidman’s “Grace of Monaco” moving to 2014), but Winslet is still clearly in the mix for her acclaimed role in Jason Reitman’s new drama. Lest you forget, Winslet is an Academy favorite having won her Best Actress statue on her sixth nomination. Six nods that came before the age of 33. Not only was she the youngest actress to ever hit that milestone, but Meryl Streep and Jane Fonda are the only living actresses with more nominations than her. That achievement is why — even in this tight race — no one should discredit the love for her within the acting branch propelling her to a nod; she even earned a SAG Awards nomination for her work in “Quills” for Pete’s sake.

And yet, this Oscar, Emmy Award, Golden Globe, SAG, BAFTA and Grammy (yes, she only needs a Tony for EGOT) still humbly remarked during our chat, “I still feel like every movie is the first one I’ve ever done and I’m going to be dreadful and I’ve forgotten how to act.”

You can hear Winslet say it herself in the video embedded at the top of this post, but the moment of honesty came when she remarked about giving advice to her young co-star Gattlin Griffith (who gives a remarkable performance as her son). Then again, since Winslet continues to take on challenging material whenever and wherever she can, are we really surprised? For some actors, there just isn’t any other way. Thank heavens for that.

Find out more about Winslet’s experiences making “Labor Day” in the previously mentioned video. No joke, it may be the last we see of her until she hits the big screen.

“Labor Day” opens in limited release on Dec. 25.

Prolific documentary director Alex Gibney’s career has accelerated to the point where you could be forgiven for losing track of what his latest project actually is. This year alone, the Oscar winner has brought us two topical, well-received docs: “We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks” premiered at Sundance and was released theatrically in May, while his study of the Lance Armstrong doping scandal, “The Armstrong Lie,” premiered at Venice earlier this month. It opens in early November.

“We Steal Secrets,” meanwhile, appeared mere months after his remarkable film about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God,” appeared in theaters and on the Academy’s pre-nomination shortlist. This month, “Mea Maxima Culpa” scooped three Primtime Emmy Awards, including one for Exceptional Merit in Docmentary Filmmaking. All told, Gibney has directed (or co-directed) over 10 features since winning the 2007 Oscar for “Taxi to the Dark Side.” (It was his second nomination; 2005’s “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” earned him his first.) 

With this having been a typical work rate for the New York-based Gibney these past few years — and with the films themselves remaining notably consistent in quality — it’s no surprise to see the director rewarded with the Career Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association. The honor, which aknowledges “a filmmaker who has made a major impact on the documentary genre through a long and distinguished body of work,” will be presented at the IDA Awards ceremony on December 6. Past recipients of the award include Werner Herzog, Michael Moore, Barbara Kopple and Errol Morris.

The IDA also announced two other honorary award winners alongside Gibney. Executive producer Geralyn Dryfous, whose credits include 2004 Oscar winner “Born Into Brothels” and last year’s nominee “The Invisible War,” will receive the rarely-awarded Amicus Award for “friends of the documentary genre.” Only three people, including Steven Spielberg, have been awarded the prize in its 29-year history. Meanwhile, docmaker Laura Poitras will accept the Courage Under Fire Award for “conspicuous bravery in the pursuit of truth.” Her 2007 film “My Country, My Country” — the first in a planned three-part series on post-9/11 America — got her an Oscar nod.

IDA head Michael Lumpkin states: “The outstanding individuals IDA has chosen to honor this year represent the very best of our thriving documentary filmmaking community. The dedication of Gibney, Poitras and Dreyfous to the art and craft of nonfiction storytelling has contributed greatly to expanding our understanding of the shared human experience and creating a more informed, compassionate and connected world.”

http://players.brightcove.net/4838167533001/BkZprOmV_default/index.html?videoId=4912076596001

Alfonso Cuarón is ready to move on from “Gravity.” Four years of work on his space odyssey including preparation, digital pre-visualization, barrier-breaking technological advances and on-set innovation to achieve what is easily the most realistic depiction of space on film to date have taken their toll on the director and he’s ready to pursue the next thing.

“I’m more than eager,” Cuarón says. “I need it. It took so long that I have already processed the film. Even if I finished the last details before Venice, the whole film for me was very old news.”

It speaks to Cuarón’s philosophy as a filmmaker. For him, the joy of a movie is the experience of the work. The “aftertaste,” as he calls it, is what he takes away. He watches his films once with an audience and he moves on quickly to the next thing. And that, by the way, is how “Gravity” started clicking to life.

Cuarón was prepping a project in 2008 with his son, Jonás, called “A Boy and His Shoe.” The story of a young French girl spending a summer in Scotland with her family who crosses paths with two gypsy Scottish boys was set to be a very low budget, no frills sort of thing. But the financial crisis of that year caused the film’s financing to fall apart and the Cuaróns were stuck looking for another project. Jonás had just written a script called “Desierto” and he asked for notes on it, but his father had none. Instead, the tension of the piece made him want to pursue something similar and so he asked Jonás to help him write “Gravity,” a film that would be full of all the themes of adversity and how a person can grow and learn a lot from that adversity that they were experiencing in real life with “A Boy and His Shoe.”

“We said, ‘Let’s not lick our wounds; let’s move on,'” Cuarón says. “Jonás and I have similar sensibilities, broadly speaking; we’re in the same neighborhood. I think he’s less stuck-up in concepts, though. What happened with me in this process is I dusted off a lot of prejudices. For him, doing something fun and entertaining is not a pejorative thing, it’s a plus. With ‘Gravity,’ he keeps on saying, ‘This is something which you are at the edge of your seat. Things keep on moving forward and we juggle all these themes but while things are moving forward.'”

And “moving forward” is a succinct way to put it. “Gravity” is almost a procedural in the way it is presented, boiled down to a set of point-A-to-point-B obstacles as astronauts Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) find themselves drifting helplessly in space after a whirlwind of unintended debris shatters their in-orbit space shuttle.

The action is captured by Cuarón’s cameraman colleague Emmanuel Lubezki (along with plenty of help from digital effects wizardry) in a series of extended takes of up to 13 minutes in length. It reminds of Cuarón’s last film, 2006’s “Children of Men,” which featured three dazzling centerpiece single takes. But capturing drama in one uninterrupted frame is something Cuarón has been interested in for some time.

“I did this film, ‘Y Tu Mamá También,’ that is just single takes, and some of them are quite lengthy,” he says of another Lubezki collaboration. “In most cases the camera was rarely moving. The theory that we started developing there is a character in context: character and environment should have the same weight. Rather than doing a film that is in close-up, where the weight goes to character, we wanted to something that is wider, where character informs context and context informs character. So it’s a comment on both. We wanted to keep exploring that theory in ‘Children of Men,’ but together with that, on ‘Gravity,’ we wanted to convey a sense of what we know as space exploration footage. It tends to be single shots just because you don’t have the luxury of cutting around. But at the same time we wanted it to turn into an immersive experience, where audiences feel like they’re part of the journey, like they’re almost a third astronaut next to our characters.”

Indeed, that immersion extends past mise-en-scène to exhibition technology. The soundtrack has been mixed for Dolby’s new Atmos experience while the film will be released in 3D and IMAX. 3D was actually a part of the equation from the beginning. The original title of the screenplay was “Gravity: A Space Suspense in 3D,” and when Cuarón and his team began prepping the film early on, more than four years ago, 3D maestro Chris Parks was working on the footage and pre-visualizations.

“We started planning every single decision that was going to inform how we were going to shoot and then how we were going to apply the 3D, because we didn’t want 3D to be a gimmick, we wanted it to be part of the experience,” Cuarón says. “And I have to say, I had misgivings about 3D just because of the quality of the picture. It milks the picture. You don’t have great blacks, you don’t have great whites, it murks the color. But saying so, if I see ‘Gravity,’ as much as I like the quality of the picture in 2D, 2D is only 30 percent of the full experience. I think for ‘Gravity’ it’s 3D.”

But Cuarón doesn’t cop to being a technical wizard or geek himself. On films like “Children of Men” and “Gravity,” technology has simply been forced up to the level of his vision. “There are some people, like James Cameron, who really know about that stuff,” Cuarón says. “And thank God for that because if it was not because of people like him, films like ‘Life of Pi’ or ‘Gravity’ would be impossible. But for me, I just want to try to figure out the tools to achieve the shots or the cinematic experience I’m looking for.”

A lot of the technology Cuarón and company developed for “Gravity” obviously has a very specific use: achieving a zero-gravity effect on actors. But after the long and grueling experience of this film, he is certainly not interested in doing any other movie about people floating around. “Whatever I do next, I just want people to walk,” he jokes. Nevertheless, certain technological barriers have been knocked down for any filmmakers interested in shooting a space film, and the ripple effect will not be inconsequential. But Cuarón is quick to note the possibilities of LED lighting, which he used on the film.

“I think it’s going to be the next step in cinematography,” he says. “It’s still in diapers because LED lights, most of them come with a lot of problems with flicker and stuff, but the possibilities of lighting with LED lights is just the amazing complexity of color you can give. If you use movie lights, there’s only one color that is going through. But if you shoot a plate of your environment and you project it with LED lights, the thing is that you’re conveying all the colors of the environment. And that’s what we did. I love in ‘Gravity’ the complexity of skin tones, because in a way, she [Bullock] is being lit by the sun and the Earth and everything spinning around.”

The process was so long and detailed throughout that Cuarón says he never really had the distance to properly enjoy the shots he and his team had conceived. They were, again, “old news” for him long before an audience at the Venice Film Festival finally got a look. Not only that, but ever the perfectionist, he kept finding issues and problems to fix. Everything was just adjustments on top of adjustments, technical problems on top of technical problems.

“At some point, Tim Webber, our visual effects supervisor, started saying, ‘Calm down. You don’t have to worry so much. This is really good. It’s looking very good,'” Cuarón recalls. “And I was just like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know about the level of contrast in this little bit,’ you know? And then we were doing the grading with Chivo [Emmanuel Lubezki] and Steve Scott, the grader, says, ‘Wow, this is amazing material,’ but I was, ‘Yes, but I’m not sure about this or that.’ And then Chivo, he never likes anything, he started saying, ‘No, this is really cool. I’m so happy about this.’ But it was by bits. You hear it from the visual effects, from the grader, from your DP, but you don’t have the cohesive experience until you see it through the eyes of the audience, and that is the great thing.”

By the time he was there for the first public screening at Venice, he was just numb to the whole exercise, skeptical, even. “And that screening had so many technical problems,” Cuarón recalls. “So I was like, ‘Well, that’s the nature of this film. More technical problems.’ But then the response at the end of the screening was absolutely amazing…It’s not only, obviously, the rendering and how it looks, but the emotional journey.”

Indeed, there is a human underneath all that razzle dazzle, one carrying most of the film on her shoulders entirely: actress Sandra Bullock. The role seemed to be a bit of a revolving door for a while as Marion Cotillard, Scarlett Johansson, Blake Lively, Natalie Portman and Angelina Jolie were all in the mix at some point. But in Bullock, Cuarón ended up with not just an Oscar-winning leading lady, but one whose background in ballet would help her through the taxing physical demands of the role.

When Cuarón first met Bullock, they didn’t talk about the technical aspects, about space, nothing of that sort. It was all about the sense of the film, the emotional journey the character takes. He walked away from that conversation knowing he had a creative cohort, not merely an employee, and that distinction would be crucial.

“When you do films like this, characters are so exposed,” Cuarón says. “You don’t want an actor working under your instructions; you want a collaborator. And she was so up to it. She was kind of fearless in the sense that she was going to be, in many ways, very exposed and at the same time minimizing dialogue as a tool. It was just about her expressiveness and her inner emotional life.

“I think it’s remarkable what she did, and it’s even more remarkable when you know the limitations she went through during the shoot, in the sense that everything was absolutely pre-programmed. It required a lot of physical training to accomplish the shots. On top of that she was bound by choreography and sometimes dozens of cues in a shot with precise timing. It was amazing. I remember editing the film and just watching the performance, saying, ‘I don’t believe this woman.'”

Viewers may well feel the same about Bullock and “Gravity” on the whole when it opens nationwide on Oct. 4. See it on the biggest screen possible and enjoy the trip.

[For more from Cuarón, check out our video interview with the director embedded at the top of this post.]

As discussed in yesterday’s Best Picture Contenders gallery, “Blue is the Warmest Color” is already a long shot for Oscar recognition, but it’ll become a longer one still if some enterprising publicist doesn’t save director Abdellatif Kechiche from himself. It’s no secret by now that there was bad blood behind the scenes of the French erotic drama, and Lea Seydoux has already been candid about her disdain for the Algerian-born filmmaker. Now Kechiche has fired back, claiming he considered replacing Seydoux on set, and arguing that the fallout has “soiled” the film to such a degree that it shouldn’t even be released. If this is some kind of warped publicity campaign, I’d rethink it. The film is done. It’s great. Maybe just let some things go? [The Playlist]

I love The Dissolve’s Performance Review series. Mike D’Angelo revisits the Best Supporting Actress race of 1976 to examine how Beatrice Straight won the Oscar for a five-minute performance. [The Dissolve]

Nathaniel Rogers on a Best Actor race that is nowhere close to being narrowed down. And yay for that. [The Film Experience]

Highlights from a masterclass with “Captain Phillips” director Paul Greengrass at Britain’s National Film & Television School. [Screen Daily]

“August: Osage County” and “Nebraska” have been selected for the Centerpiece slots at next month’s Hamptons International Film Festival. [Variety]

It may surprise you to learn that “Diana,” in addition to its other alleged shortcomings, is not historically accurate. [The Guardian]

Paul Sheehan states that “Prisoners” is a stronger Oscar contender than we thought, though curbs Hugh Jackman’s prospects with a photo gallery suggesting that hot guys don’t win Oscars. [Gold Derby] 

The film also gets an entry in the NYT’s exellent Anatomy of a Scene series, in which Denis Villeneuve talks us through a key sequence. [New York Times]

Kate Erbland on the plague of pointless IMAX conversions. [Film.com]

The Oscar season is howling to life in the wake of the Venice, Telluride and Toronto film festivals. NYFF is right around the corner and very soon it’ll be October, “Gravity” (with “Captain Phillips” and “12 Years a Slave” right behind it) and we’ll pretty much be off to the races. It’s time, then, for our annual early plunge into this year’s contenders, which we’ll bring to you on a category-by-category basis over the next few weeks. We begin today with, what else? Best Picture.

This year’s slate of hopefuls is widely varied, but one narrative already well chewed on before we even get into the thick of things is the prevalence of African-American films and filmmakers. Beyond that, there are biopics (as usual), there are historical dramas (as usual), there are returning champions and there are first-time players. Sony, Sony Classics, Paramount and The Weinstein Company have lots to juggle and specialty companies and divisions have ample opportunity to register.

It is, in many ways, a wide-open field (though perhaps not as wide open as it seemed this time last year — the media has, after all, already collectively, recklessly decided on this year’s victor). So here in the early moments, hope springs eternal. So dive into the 36 films we’re forecasting to be on Oscar’s radar this season in the gallery story below and feel free to tell us your expectations and predictions in the comments section.

It’s been a time of mixed fortunes for Jerry Bruckheimer, the Hollywood super-producer (“Beverly Hills Cop,” “Top Gun,” “Black Hawk Down”) whose surname is as distinctive a cinematic brand as that of any auteur. Not long after his overly expensive western “The Lone Ranger” took a beating (undeservedly so, in my opinion) from critics and ticket-buyers alike, it was announced that he and Walt Disney Pictures would be ending their once-lucrative deal. As Greg noted when reporting the news last week, it wasn’t his first such flop — is there still room for studio mega-producers in this day and age?

Better news, however, comes from the American Cinematheque, who announced today that Bruckheimer will be the 27th recipient of their annual American Cinematheque Award, which is handed to “an extraordinary artist in the entertainment industry who is fully engaged in his or her work and is committed to making a significant contribution to the art of the motion pictures.” The award will be presented on December 12 in Los Angeles.

Not only is Bruckheimer the first winner of the award since Rob Reiner in 1994 to be known principally for work behind the camera — but he’s the first producer ever to take the award at all. “Jerry’s monumental accomplishments as producer of many of the most popular and iconic movies of all time, including 19 films that have grossed more than $100 million domestically, made him the obvious choice as the American Cinematheque’s first producer honoree,” says Cinemathque head Rick Niciti. “His work ethnic is matched only by his determination to stay behind the scenes so the American Cinematheque is particularly thrilled to have Jerry accept the respect and congratulations that he deserves from the motion picture industry.”

This might comes as some consolation days after Bruckheimer lost what had become his near-annual Emmy for Best Reality Competition Program for “The Amazing Race.” He has nine Emmys on his mantel overall, and four Producers’ Guild of America awards. He is still awaiting any kind of recognition from AMPAS, unsurprisingly enough.

Previous winners of the American Cinematheque Award are: Eddie Murphy, Bettle Midler, Robin Williams, Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Sean Connery, Michael Douglas, Rob Reiner,  Mel Gibson, Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Arnold Schwarzenneger, Jodie Foster, Bruce Willis, Nicolas Cage, Denzel Washinton, Nicole KIdman, Steve Martin, Al Pacino, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Samuel L. Jacobs, Matches, Robert Downey Jr, and Ben Stiller.   

We”re in the home stretch of the submissions process for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. With one week to go until the official deadline, we currently have 52 entries – which, to use past years as a yardstick, means we probably have about three-quarters of the final field confirmed. Of course, it”s at this stage that you fall way behind if you turn your back for a day or two, so I”ve got a lot of submissions to catch up on.

First, though, arguably the biggest news in the category over the past few days concerns a film that wasn”t entered. For weeks now, I”d been receiving correspondence about Indian festival hit “The Lunchbox” that implied its selection for the Oscar race was a fait accompli. The romantic comedy, in which a mistaken lunch delivery unites a lonely widower and an unhappy housewife, had everything going for it: a warm critical reception at Cannes and Toronto, crossover audience appeal and a US distribution deal with Sony Pictures Classics.

The Film Federation of India, however, saw things differently, instead submitting multi-stranded drama “The Good Road,” which won Best Gujarati Film at the country”s National Film Awards. The makers of “The Lunchbox” have been quick to voice their outrage at the perceived slight, as have many others. Not having seen either film yet, I can only voice my surprise, but perhaps the Indian selectors are thinking strategically: “The Good Road,” in which a single highway connects the fates of a put-upon truck driver, a middle-class family and a young girl searching for her grandmother, may have its own Academy-friendly merits. Fairly or otherwise, however, India joins France and Japan on the list of countries widely thought to have chosen the “wrong” film this year.

For those who want high-profile films in the race, however, there was good news from Hong Kong, as Wong Kar-wai”s martial arts epic “The Grandmaster” was announced as the country”s submission yesterday. The romantic, visually extravagant film, loosely based on the life story of famed Wing Chun martial artist Ip Man, should already be familiar to most voters, and not just because it opened in the US last month: the Academy hosted a screening of it in July, followed by a Q&A with Wong, as part of their summer tribute to kung fu cinema.

For this and other reasons, some may assume the film has a leg up with voters, but I”m not so sure. Reviews have stabilized since it opened the Berlin Film Festival to a very mixed reception in February, and it”s certainly Wong”s most mainstream film to date – but while some voters might respond to its grand spectacle, others will find it a hard film to penetrate, burdened with subplots and martial arts minutiae that still make it a somewhat esoteric experience. It doesn”t have quite the crossover immediacy of “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” or “Hero” (a winner and nominee in this category, respectively), but most agree that it”s not top-drawer Wong either. (Not that it”d help if it was the latter. Hong Kong have only submitted one of the auteur”s films before – 2000″s masterful “In the Mood for Love” – and it got nowhere in the race.) Still, as The Weinstein Company”s only horse in this race so far, it”ll have a lot of campaign muscle behind it.

A far more modest contender that I”m more confident in is Belgium”s submission, “The Broken Circle Breakdown,” a film I”ve regretfully managed to miss at three different festivals – and one that seems to reduce grown men to tears wherever it plays. Felix van Groeningen”s drama about a husband and wife, both Flemish bluegrass musicians, learning to cope with their young daughter”s terminal cancer was a huge domestic hit last year, before making its international debut at the Berlinale. There, it claimed the Audience Award in the festival”s Panorama section; it also won Best Actress and Best Screenplay at Tribeca in spring. I”ve been assured by several colleagues that the film inventively avoids the schmaltzy pitfalls of the disease-of-the-week genre – not that those would necessarily be a drawback in this race, of course. Sight unseen, I”m currently predicting a nomination; I”ll be able to make a more educated guess soon.

Another contender that has been winning hearts on the festival circuit is Canada”s just-announced submission, “Gabrielle.” Louise Archambault”s film is a reputedly gentle romantic drama about two developmentally disabled members of a special-needs choir who fall in love, despite parental opposition from one side; it won the Audience Award at the Locarno Film Festival last month, and also drew warm responses at Toronto a few weeks ago. As such, it”s another savvy submission for Canada, a country that currently has the Midas touch in this category. Their last three submissions – “War Witch,” “Monsieur Lazhar” and “Incendies” – all wound up nominated. Furthermore, only once in the last seven years have they failed to crack the nine-film shortlist. (The unlucky exception? Xavier Dolan”s “I Killed My Mother.”) Could “Gabrielle” get them a fourth consecutive nomination? You have to like its chances.

Two years ago, veteran Polish director Agnieszka Holland scored a nomination for her sobering Holocaust survival tale “In Darkness.” It was the first time she”d competed in the category for her home country, though back in 1985, her film “Angry Harvest” (also a Holocaust drama) landed a nod for what was then West Germany. I”ll leave it to geeks more thorough than I to tell me if this has ever happened before, but Holland can now claim to have represented three different nations in the race over the years, as the Czech Republic has submitted her film “Burning Bush” as their hopeful.

Shown in Eastern Europe as a three-part miniseries from HBO”s European arm, but screened in its full 230-minute format at such festivals as Rotterdam, Karlovy Vary and, most recently, Toronto, “Burning Bush” is the latest in Holland”s long line of modern historical dramas, though this one doesn”t concern WWII: this time, her focus is the Soviet occupation of Czechoslovakia in the 1960s, taking as its narrative impetus the self-sacrifice of Jan Palach, a Prague student who set himself on fire in protest against the invasion, prompting a trial against the Communist regime.

Strong stuff, I”m informed, and reviews have been excellent. But while Holland is a familiar name to Academy members (in addition to those foreign-language bids, she scored a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination for 1991″s “Europa Europa”), I wonder if the near-four-hour film will be too much of a slog for many voters, or if some will take issue with its TV roots. (It worked for “Fanny and Alexander,” mind.)   

Last week, I asked whether France could feasibly submit “Blue is the Warmest Color” for next year”s foreign-language race, despite it being eligible in general categories this year. And it would appear that Brazil has indirectly answered my question by submitting Kieber Mendonca Filho”s excellent “Neighboring Sounds” – a film that had its world premiere at Rotterdam nearly two years ago. (I saw it at IndieLisboa in April last year.)

The film, a haunting not-quite-thriller about the manifold security issues infecting neighbourly relations in a middle-class suburban street in Recife, opened in the US in summer last year. Among other accolades, New York Times critic A.O. Scott placed it on his 2012 Top 10; needless to say, it didn”t trouble the Academy. Strangely enough, however, it didn”t open in Brazil until January, meaning it can be submitted this year. It”s probably too subtle and insidious for the tastes of the branch at large, but this is exactly the kind of daring critics” pet the executive committee was designed to rescue.  

I keep saying that the Berlin Film Festival is prime hunting ground for contenders in this category, and that is further proven by Bosnia and Herzegovina”s submission this year: Danis Tanovic”s “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker.” (Yes, that”s a real title, even if it does sound like a “Simpsons” parody of Eastern European festival gruel.) It”s an entirely predictable choice, given that a) Tanovic”s “No Man”s Land” won the Oscar for Bosnia in 2001 (beating “Amelie” in the process); and b) “Iron Picker” won the Grand Prix and Best Actor from Wong Kar-wai”s jury in Berlin.

I suspect, however, that the film will have to rest on those laurels. Authentic and affecting as it is, this social-realist drama chronicling the day-to-day existence of a poverty-stricken Romany family – given a documentary infusion by Tanovic”s use of non-pro actors effectively acting out their own lives – is likely too bleak in subject and dour in tone to get very far in this race, unless the executive committee is in a particularly earnest mood.

Rounding out the recent submissions, Russia has given the race its only 3D and IMAX contender (so far) with “Stalingrad,” a WWII epic depicting the eponymous 1942 battle, with a cast that includes German star Thomas Kretschmann (“The Pianist”). With the film not yet released in its home country, critical word has yet to emerge; among the shortlisted films it beat out was another 1942-set war drama, Sergei Loznitsa”s acclaimed “In the Fog.” International critics may carp, but the film was a box office failure at home, so it”s not surprising it was passed over.

South Africa has selected “Four Corners,” a multilingual tale of a teenager drawn into Cape Town”s violent child-gang scene – having won the Oscar for “Tsotsi” eight years ago, they”re clearly hoping for criminal-youth subject matter to strike gold again. Other new entries: Bangladesh”s “Television,” Thailand”s “Countdown,” Slovakia”s “My Dog Killer” and Colombia”s “La Playa DC.”

Check out the updated submissions list here.