France’s Five Finalists For Best International Film Oscar Submission

France announced on Thursday the five pre-selected feature films in the running for the country’s Oscar submission.

Eric Gravel’s “Full Time,” Lise Asoka and Romane Gueret‘s “The Worst Ones,” Alice Wincour’s “Paris Memories,” Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer,” and Mia Hansen-Love’s “One Fine Morning.”

A few surprising omissions: Rebecca Zlotowski’s “Other People’s Children,” and Dominik Moll’s “La Nuit Du 12.”

Romain Gavras’ “Athena” was not eligible since it is a Netflix production and won’t be released in French theaters. Otherwise, that could have been a major contender.

The final selection will be announced on September 23rd. As I mentioned last week, before this morning’s announcement, the front runners clearly are Mia Hansen-Love and Alice Diop’s films. The latter just won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice, although it may be too cerebral a movie for the Academy’s tastes …

I’m even a bit surprised that Wincour is in the final five given that her film was poorly received. Then again, this has been a very weak year for French cinema. Take note, none of the four French films selected for this year’s Cannes competition made the cut.

This year’s committee includes international sales agents Hengameh Panahi, Grégoire Melin, producers Philippe Rousselet (“Coda”), Didar Domehri (“Girls of the Sun”), and directors Jacques Audiard (“A Prophet”) and Michel Gondry (“L’ecûme des jours”), along with Gaumont executive Ariane Toscan du Plantier. 

So far, there have been 27 countries that have submitted their picks to academy:

• Decision to Leave (South Korea)

• The Quiet Girl (Ireland)

• A Piece of Sky (Switzerland)

• EO (Poland)

• Unseen (Ecuador)

• Eternal Spring (Canada)

• All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany)

• The Employer and the Employee (Uruguay)

• Goddamned Asura (Taiwan)

• Plan 75 (Japan)

• January (Latvia)

• Birthday Boy (Panama)

• Girl Picture (Finland)

• A Cup of Coffee and New Shoes (Albania)

• Blockade (Hungary)

• Orchestra (Slovenia)

• Under the Fig Trees (Tunisia)

• Klondike (Ukraine)

• Magnetic Fields (Greece)

• Our Brothers (Algeria)

• Mother (Bulgaria)

• Mars One (Brazil)

• Life (Kazakhstan)

• A Long Break (Georgia)

• Utama (Bolivia)