In Contention

Tag: Winter in Wartime

  • Sony Classics nabs Dutch foreign Oscar entry

    Winter in WartimeSo we’re potentially looking at four of the five nominees being housed under one roof domestically.  Interesting.  The press release, in part:

    Sony Pictures Classics announced today that they have acquired all US rights to the Dutch film, WINTER IN WARTIME from High Point Films, the theatrical division of Carey Fitzgerald’s London based High Point Media Group. Negotiating the deal was Sony Pictures Classics’ Executive Vice President of Acquisitions and Production, Dylan Leiner and High Point’s Director of Theatrical Sales and Marketing, Elisar Cabrera. The film is directed by Martin Koolhoven (SCHNITZEL PARADISE) and is produced by Els Vandevorst (co-produced Lars Von Trier’s MANDERLAY and DOGVILLE), and San Fu Maltha (BLACK BOOK).

    “WINTER IN WARTIME, beautifully realized by director Martin Koolhoven, takes a fresh look at Dutch resistance from the perspective of a 13 year old child. This film is the kind of emotionally engaging drama that has consistently achieved success with American audiences,” said Sony Pictures Classics.

  • Foreign notes

    The Milk of SorrowWell, as I suspected, my predictions for the Academy’s foreign film shortlist were mainly off the mark, though I maintained my 4-from-9 strike rate from last year … so, yay for consistency.

    That said, I’m not terribly surprised by the films that did make the cut. As I wrote earlier today, I knew one of the WWII-themed films in the mix would make the cut — but plumped for Norway’s “Max Manus” instead of the Netherlands’ “Winter in Wartime.” And festival hit “Samson and Delilah” was high on my radar, a film I suspected the executive committee might save (as I’m sure was the case).

    I foolishly blanked on Argentina’s “The Secret in Their Eyes,” a romantic thriller that was extremely well received at Toronto in the fall, and may yet be the spoiler in this race. I’d received word that this was one to watch, but it slipped my mind this morning.

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  • Academy’s foreign shortlist unveiled

    Samson and DelilahWell, Guy nailed down four of them.  But you just never know what this controversial branch is going to do.  I’d love to know what the secondary committee had to re-institute (probably “A Prophet”), but nevertheless, we have our nine.

    The only films I was predicting that didn’t make the cut are “Backyard” from Mexico and “Forever Enthralled” from China.  Replace those with “Ajami” from Israel (which I JUST took out of my predictions Monday in favor of “The Milk of Sorrow”) and “The Secret in Their Eyes” from Argentina and that would be my bet.

    I’ll leave it to Guy with further thoughts later on.  I need to catch up on the rest of films now that it’s a more, shall we say, manageable list.  Check out the full list of nine, from an original list of 65 submissions, after the jump.

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  • Waiting on Oscar’s foreign language shortlist

    Niels Arestrup and Tahar Rahim in A ProphetLast Saturday, the Academy concluded four months of screenings of the 65 films in contention for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film award. Today, that tall pile of titles will be culled to a shortlist of just nine contenders, from which the eventual five nominees will be chosen.

    Making predictions here is a pretty thankless task, given the regularity with which this branch of the Academy slights seemingly sure-fire nominees in favour of less visible, and less acclaimed, fare. Indeed, a high-profile snub, with ensuing media outcry, has virtually become an annual Oscar tradition.

    The furore over the omission of Romania’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” two years ago even prompted a change in the voting system – to safeguard against such controversies, a smaller executive committee was appointed to add three titles to the six elected by the branch voters.

    It didn’t work: when last year’s critical darling “Gomorrah” failed to impress even the new committee, the Academy was raked over the coals once more. The bottom line, then, is that even the mightiest title can’t be called a shoo-in in this race.

    (More analysis, and shortlist predictions, after the cut.)

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  • Netherlands switches Oscar submission to ‘Wartime’

    Winter in WartimeThanks to regular reader Jonathan for alerting us yesterday to the news that the Dutch have backtracked on their Best Foreign Language Film award, after their first selection, “The Silent Army,” was disqualified by the Academy. Martin Koolhoven’s well-regarded Second World War drama “Winter in Wartime” will compete in its place.

    “The Silent Army” was an unpopular selection in the first place, having been extensively recut after an initial critical mauling, and prompting complaints from Dutch industry insiders that it had too much English dialogue to qualify. In the end, however, it was the former rather than the latter issue that led to its disqualification — the initial cut of “Army” was released in 2008, and Academy rules forbid new edits of previous years’ releases from competing.

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