February: Foreign Language Oscar Submissions III
February: Foreign Language Oscar Submissions III, FLMTQ Releases 173-176
During the month of February, and coinciding with the 92nd Academy Awards, Filmatique presents Foreign Language Oscar Submissions III, a collection of films from Palestine, India, Morocco, and Kazakhstan—nations that have rarely, if ever, been nominated for the award.
Palestinian filmmaker Annemarie Jacir's When I Saw You follows the journey of a young boy and his mother into a Jordanian refugee camp, after having been forced from their home during the Six Day War—while Chaitanya Tamhane's first feature Court dismantles the labyrinthine structure of India's legal system, tracing the case of a folk singer accused of abetting a stranger's suicide through one of his performances. Sergey Dvortsevoy's ebullient narrative debut Tulpan captures the rhythms of nomadic existence on a serene, isolated stretch of the Kazakh steppes; in his fourth feature Horses of God, Nabil Ayouch interrogates the origins of violence, examining the social realities that enable the cultivation of vulnerable young men into martyrs.
In the 63 years since the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film has existed, only 26 nations have ever been represented onstage. Palestine has been twice nominated, Kazakhstan and Nepal once, and India just three times. Following last year's spotlight on works from nations historically underrepresented at the Academy Awards, Filmatique's Foreign Language Oscar Submissions III provides a countervailing vision of world cinema, one more vibrant and diverse than the Academy might have us think.
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Horses of God, Nabil Ayouch (2012)
Horses of God, Nabil Ayouch / Morocco-Belgium-France-Tunisia, 2012
Yachine and his older brother Hamid reside in Sidi Moumen, a slum assembled along the periphery of Casablanca. Both boys are exposed to a quotidian atmosphere of scarcity and fear, working odd jobs to put food on their family's table, rare moments of elation deriving from soccer matches on a makeshift field. Hamid soon falls under the influence of a local gang and lands in prison; he re-emerges some years later newly committed to a fundamentalist form of Islam. Longing to reconnect with his brother, Yachine begins attending the sermons of the Imam Abou Zoubeir, who soon announces that the boys have been chosen to perform an act of martyrdom.
Embracing a social-realistic aesthetic approach and filmed using non-professional actors, Horses of God unsettles the facile binaries that often characterize our conceptions of terrorism, poverty, violence, and religious extremism. Nabil Ayouch's fourth feature premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the François Chalais Award; IFFR - Rotterdam, where it won the MovieZone Award; Seattle, where it won Best Director; and Valladolid, where it won Best Film. Horses of God was selected as Morocco's official submission to the 86th Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.
Tulpan, Sergey Dvortsevoy (2008)
Tulpan, Sergey Dvortsevoy / Kazakhstan-Russia-Germany-Poland-Switzerland-Italy, 2008
Upon completion of his Russian naval service, Asa returns to the windswept Kazakhstani steppe where he dreams of establishing himself as a herder of sheep and goats. In order to acquire a flock of his own, however, Asa must first marry—the only eligible woman for miles is Tulpan, his neighbor's enigmatic daughter. Surrounded by a coterie of unwieldy creatures and his foolhardy friend Boni, Asa sets about convincing Tulpan that he is both a worthy shepherd and husband.
Peppered with gentle humor, ethnographic detail, and attention to animal worlds, Tulpan captures the rhythms of nomadic existence in a surreal and barren landscape, revealing a starkly beautiful, if not vanishing way of life. Having previously worked in documentaries, Sergey Dvortsevoy's first narrative feature premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won Best Film in Un Certain Regard; Karlovy Vary, where it won the Netpac Award; Tokyo, where it won Best Director and the Grand Prix; Cinemanila, where it won the Grand Jury Prize; Dubai, where it won Best Actor; Zurich, where it won Best International Feature Film; and Reykjavik, where it won Best Film. Tulpan was the fourth film ever submitted by Kazakhstan to the Foreign Language Academy Award, and is a New York Times Critics' Pick.
Court, Chaitanya Tamhane (2014)
Court, Chaitanya Tamhane / India, 2014
By day, Narayan Kamble teaches young children poetry at a local school; in the evenings he performs folk songs at political protests, lamenting the lack of social mobility available to India's lower classes. During one such performance Kamble is removed from the stage and arrested—he has been charged with abetting the suicide of a sewage worker, who was discovered dead in a drainage pipe not long after Kamble performed in his village. The ensuing trial pits the activist lawyer Vinay Vora against the public prosecutor Nutan, revealing a complex and entangled web of police corruption, vestigial colonial law, and procedural pretense that approaches the absurd.
Mediated through diverse perspectives ranging from the accused to the judge hearing his case, Court observes in subdued, naturalistic tones the resonances between caste hierarchies and jurisprudence that govern contemporary Indian life. Chaitanya Tamhane's debut film premiered at the Venice Film Festival, where it won Best Film in Orizzonti and the Luigi De Laurentiis Award; BAFICI, where it won Best Actor and Best Film; and Vienna, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize. Court is a New York Times Critics' Pick, and was selected as India's official submission to the 88th Academy Awards.
When I Saw You, Annemarie Jacir (2012)