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The world premiere of Takeshi Kushida’s Acting For Beginners has been set as the opening film of Japan’s Skip City International D-Cinema Festival (July 13-21), which has also revealed its international and Japanese competition titles.

It marks a return to the festival for Japanese filmmaker Kushida, whose psychological thriller My Mother’s Eyes premiered in competition at Skip City last year, having won the festival’s top award in 2020 with Woman Of The Photographs.

Kushida’s latest centres on a man who moves between dreams and reality against the backdrop of an abandoned factory where time seems to have stopped.

Skip City International D-Cinema Festival which started in 2004 in Kawaguchi City, Saitama Prefecture, has been held every year as a “gateway for emerging talent” centered on the International Competition and the Japanese Film Competition (features and shorts). The festival launched the careers of Kazuya Shiraishi (Lesson in Murder), Ryota Nakano (The Asadas), Shinichiro Ueda (One Cut of the Dead), Shinzo Katayama (Missing) and many other directors who are leading the Japanese film industry as top runners and whose new movies audiences are looking forward to seeing.

The 21st edition will be held both at theaters and online as a hybrid festival again.

On Friday, June 7th, we held a press conference to announce the full line-up consisting of the titles of the whole line-up. This year's festival will open with Acting for Beginners, directed by Takeshi Kushida, who won the 2020 Skip City Award for Woman of the Photographs, the nomination...

On the surface, it looks like any other teenage love story: Abel, an absent-minded high-school student in Budapest, hopelessly pines for his best friend, Erika, dreamily staring out the classroom window when the teacher calls his name. On the day of his final exam, he draws a blank: Rather than bury his head in his history books, Abel’s had his head in the clouds.

But an off-hand comment by one of his examiners, about the tricolor ribbon pinned to his lapel — a nationalist symbol in Viktor Orbán’s Hungary — sparks a controversy that soon snowballs into a nationwide scandal. For Hungarian filmmaker Gábor Reisz, the director of “Explanation for Everything,” the debate cuts to the heart of a question that has increasingly dominated public discourse in his country since the rise of the right-wing prime minister: “Are you a real Hungarian?”

The film, which premieres in the Horizons strand of the Venice Film Festival,...

The Hungarian film industry is booming, with a record 241 domestic productions — including feature films, shorts, documentaries and TV series — produced in 2021. Here’s a selection of top projects in the pipeline or being sold during the Cannes Market:

As Long as the Grass Grows

Director: Áron Gauder

Producer: Réka Temple (Cinemon Entertainment)

Annecy main prize winner Gauder (“The District”) spins an alternative creation myth, in which mankind is but one of many creatures in the animal kingdom, and offers a hopeful story that it’s not too late to correct course and save the planet.

Blockade

Director: Ádám Tősér

Producer: Tamás Lajos (Film Positive Productions)

Based on the true story of the country’s first democratically elected prime minister, the film follows József Antall’s journey from a freedom fighter during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to the infamous 1990 taxi blockade that shook the nation.

Sales: Nfi World Sales

The Game...

From sweet-talking translators to a symphony of shepherds’ calls, the common currency in this refreshing selection of short films from 19 European countries is amusement

In the wake of Brexit, there’s a defiant note in the overarching theme – Happy Together – of this year’s survey of European shorts, brought to us by Eunic London, an umbrella organisation for EU cultural institutions, and pulled together by London-based curator Shira MacLeod. But, as they say, it’s complicated: the “happiness”, as flaunted in many of these 19 short films, feels somewhat ironic; long-suffering humour the common currency in muddling through a bundle of dissatisfactions, gripes and misunderstandings.

In Barnabás Tóth’s Chuchotage, two Hungarian translators make unlikely sweet talk from the Euro-sustainability waffle they have to parse for an attractive client. The scenario walks a fine line next to creepy sexual harassment – before these cunning linguists get their comeuppance.

For the first time ever, two Hungarian films are competing for the Berlinale’s Golden Bear: “Forest – I See You Everywhere,” a standalone sequel to the 2003 Berlinale hit “Forest,” from veteran auteur Bence Fliegauf, and “Natural Light” from feature debutant Dénes Nagy. Csaba Káel, chairman of the National Film Institute of Hungary (Nfi), says, “I believe it demonstrates the vitality and strength of the Hungarian industry flourishing despite the unprecedented circumstances caused by the pandemic worldwide.”

The two films represent opposite poles of current Hungarian filmmaking. Brimming with discourse, the independently funded “Forest” tells multiple complex, engaging stories of contemporary life in Hungary. And as he did in his Berlinale-winner “Just the Wind” (2012), Fliegauf creates deep empathy for his characters who deliver standout performances.

On the other hand, “Natural Light,” with its minimal dialogue, harks back to an older tradition in Hungarian cinema where stunning cinematography leads the other formal elements.

Bookmark this page for all the latest international feature submissions.

Submissions for the best international feature film award at the 2021 Academy Awards have started to come in, and Screen is keeping a running list of each film below.

Scroll down for the full list

The 93rd Academy Awards is set to take place on April 25, 2021. It was originally set to be held on February 28, before both the ceremony and eligibility period were postponed for two months due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Submitted films must have been released in their respective countries between the expanded dates of October 1, 2019, and December 31, 2020. (Last year it was October-September.

Hungary’s Oscar© Entry for Best International Feature ‘Those Who Remained’ Directed by Barnabás TóthBarna, as Barnabás Tóth is called, has the rare occurrence of having two films in two consecutive years shortlisted for the Academy Award Nomination. Last year his short film, ‘Cuchotage’ and this year his international feature ‘Those Who Remained’ have been shortlisted.

The road Barna and his producer traveled to get this film made was long and arduous. I spoke with him on the phone from Budapest and again in the Q&a for the Academy members screening held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills before he and his lead actress, Abigél Szõke, left for Palm Springs Film Festival where the film will show again.

Those Who Remained reveals the healing process of Shoah survivors through the eyes of a young girl in post-World War II Hungary. It is a lyrical story of the...

Bong Joon-ho's appealingly invasive Cannes Palme d'Or winner Parasite makes the 92nd Academy Awards International Film shortlist Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze

In April of 2019, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences changed the Best Foreign Language Film category to Best International Feature Film.

The 92nd Academy Awards Oscar Best International Film shortlist has been revealed with the number increased from nine to ten for this year.

From France, Cannes Jury Prize winner Les Misérables, Ladj Ly, director; Poland, Corpus Christi, Jan Komasa, director; Spain, Pain And Glory, starring Cannes Best Actor Antonio Banderas, Pedro Almodóvar, director; Czech Republic, The Painted Bird, Václav Marhoul, director; Hungary, Those Who Remained, Barnabás Tóth, director; Kazakhstan, Ayka, Sergey Dvortsevoy, director; Russia, Beanpole, Cannes Un Certain Regard Best Director Kantemir Balagov; Senegal, Cannes Grand Prix winner Atlantics, Mati Diop, director; North Macedonia, Honeyland, Ljubo Stefanov and Tamara Kotevska, directors; South Korea, Cannes Palme d'Or winner Parasite,...

The annual Palm Springs International Film Festival in California is always an opportunity to catch up on many of the contenders for the Best International Feature — née Best Foreign-Language — Film Academy Award. Now in its 31st edition, the festival this year has 51 of them, from favorite-to-beat “Parasite” from South Korea and Senegal’s “Atlantics,” to other films quietly making strides in the race: Czech Republic’s “The Painted Bird,” Sweden’s “And Then We Danced,” Russia’s “Beanpole,” Romania’s “The Whistlers,” North Macedonia’s documentary contender “Honeyland,” Norway’s “Out Stealing Horses,” and many more.

The festival will screen 188 films from 81 countries, including 51 premieres, from January 2-13, 2020. The Awards Buzz section includes a special jury of international film critics, who will review these films to present the Fipresci Award for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, as well as Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Screenplay in this category.

One hundred eighty-eight films films from 81 countries including 51 premieres highlight the lineup for the 31st annual Palm Springs International Film Festival, which kicks off January 2 with a star-studded gala that has become a must-stop during awards season for Oscar hopefuls. The festival, which runs through January 13, also is known for showcasing a large number of submissions in the Motion Picture Academy’s International Film (formerly Foreign Language) competition and will feature 51 of those entries.

The opening-night film on January 3 is the Italian farce An Almost Ordinary Summer, while the closer is director Peter Cattaneo’s heartwarming dramedy Military Wives in which Kristin Scott Thomas, Sharon Horgan and Jason Flemyng lead a superb ensemble cast. The film had its world premiere at September’s Toronto International Film Festival and became an instant crowd-pleaser. Bleecker Street releases it in 2020.

Among the previously announced honorees at the January 2 gala are Antonio Banderas, Renee Zellweger,...

Western Europe traditionally gets the lion’s share of attention in the international film category, with France and Italy still leading the record books in terms of nominations and wins. But a number of the most exciting contenders among this year’s submissions hail from a little further east: in a bumper year for cinema from Central and Eastern Europe, a few titles stand out.

Language has been a subject of significant controversy in this year’s Oscar race. Yet, the Academy has moved the needle on this front in recent years: not so long ago, films that weren’t in an official language of the submitting country were ineligible. That would have ruled out this year’s submission from the Czech Republic, “The Painted Bird.” Aiming to be the first Czech film to score a nomination since 2003’s “Zelary,” Václav Marhoul’s film is a linguistic anomaly in all...

A record 93 countries submitted entries in the International Feature Film race at the 2020 Oscars. That is up by six from last year,when the category was still called Best Foreign-Language Film, and eclipses the record 92 submissions in 2018. The nations represented ranged from A (Albania) to V (Vietnam). Predicting the eventual five Oscar nominees is made difficult by the two-step process.

First, the several hundred academy members of the Foreign-Language Film screening committee are required to watch a number of the submissions (upwards of a dozen) over a two-month period that ends in mid December. They will rate them from 6 to 10 and their top six vote-getters make it to the next round, as will three films added by the 20 members of the executive committee.

Those nine semi-finalists will be screened three per day beginning in early January by select committee members in Gotham, Hollywood, London and San Francisco. These 40 folks will...

A record-breaking total of 93 countries have submitted entries to be considered for best international film nominations at the Academy Awards.

The Academy announced the full list of eligible films and countries on Monday. Ghana, Nigeria and Uzbekisztan are competing for the first time in the category, which was previously known as the best foreign-language film category.

The previous high for submissions was 92 in 2017. A total of 87 films were submitted last year. Alfonso Cuaron’s “Roma” won the category this year, becoming the first Mexican entry to win the award.

High-profile entries include South Korea’s “Parasite,” Bong Joon Ho’s black comedy which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival; Spain’s “Pain and Glory” from Pedro Almodovar with Antonio Banderas starring as a film director; Japan’s “Weathering With You,” the country’s first animated entry since “Princess Mononoke”; Senegal’s “Atlantics” from director Mati Diop,...

The 2020 foreign-language Oscar nominees will come from submissions from 93 countries, up from last year’s 87, and breaking the record 92 from 2017. A contender for the renamed Best International Feature must be a feature-length motion picture (more than 40 minutes) produced outside the United States with a predominantly non-English dialogue track.

Ghana, Nigeria, and Uzbekistan are first-time entrants, but Uganda did not qualify. China (Yu Yang’s “Ne Zha”) and Senegal (Mati Diop’s “Atlantics”) submitted their films under the wire on the deadline of October 1.

Earlier this year, the Academy’s Board of Governors voted not only to rename the Foreign Language Film category, but to expand the shortlist from nine films to 10.

The 2019 submissions, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

Albania, “The Delegation,” Bujar Alimani, director;

Algeria, “Papicha,” Mounia Meddour, director;

Argentina, “Heroic Losers,” Sebastián Borensztein, director;

Armenia, “Lengthy Night,” Edgar Baghdasaryan, director;

Australia, “Buoyancy,” Rodd Rathjen, director;

Austria, “Joy,...

The 2020 foreign-language Oscar nominees will come from submissions from 93 countries, up from last year’s 87, and breaking the record 92 from 2017. A contender for the renamed Best International Feature must be a feature-length motion picture (more than 40 minutes) produced outside the United States with a predominantly non-English dialogue track.

Ghana, Nigeria, and Uzbekistan are first-time entrants, but Uganda did not qualify. China (Yu Yang’s “Ne Zha”) and Senegal (Mati Diop’s “Atlantics”) submitted their films under the wire on the deadline of October 1.

Earlier this year, the Academy’s Board of Governors voted not only to rename the Foreign Language Film category, but to expand the shortlist from nine films to 10.

The 2019 submissions, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

Albania, “The Delegation,” Bujar Alimani, director;

Algeria, “Papicha,” Mounia Meddour, director;

Argentina, “Heroic Losers,” Sebastián Borensztein, director;

Armenia, “Lengthy Night,” Edgar Baghdasaryan, director;

Australia, “Buoyancy,” Rodd Rathjen, director;

Austria, “Joy,...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released the full list of countries that have submitted a pic for consideration for the new International Feature Film Oscar category.

Here are the 93 nations and their hopefuls, in alphabetical order:

Albania, The Delegation, Bujar Alimani, director;

Algeria, Papicha, Mounia Meddour, director;

Argentina, Heroic Losers, Sebastián Borensztein, director;

Armenia, Lengthy Night, Edgar Baghdasaryan, director;

Australia, Buoyancy, Rodd Rathjen, director;

Austria, Joy, Sudabeh Mortezai, director;

Bangladesh, Alpha, Nasiruddin Yousuff, director;

Belarus, Debut, Anastasiya Miroshnichenko, director;

Belgium, Our Mothers, César Díaz, director;

Bolivia, I Miss You, Rodrigo Bellott, director;

Bosnia and Herzegovina, The Son, Ines Tanovic, director;

Brazil, Invisible Life, Karim Aïnouz, director;

Bulgaria, Ága, Milko Lazarov, director;

Cambodia, In the Life of Music, Caylee So, Sok Visal, directors;

Canada, Antigone, Sophie Deraspe, director;

Chile, Spider, Andrés Wood, director;

China, Ne Zha, Yu Yang, director;

Colombia, Monos, Alejandro Landes, director;

Costa Rica, The Awakening of the Ants,...

Last year’s final foreign-language Oscar nominations — for what is now called the Best International Feature Film category — were culled from 87 submissions from around the world, and this year’s crop could be close to that number. The Academy will announce its list of eligible submissions after the official deadline of today, October 1.

Leading the crowded field is “Parasite” (Neon) from Bong Joon Ho (“Okja”), who returned to Cannes and took home the Palme d’Or, the first Korean filmmaker to do so. He could also become the first Oscar nominee from South Korea. Neon is pushing the film in multiple categories, hoping for the range of Oscar nods scored by Netflix’s “Roma” and Amazon’s “Cold War” last year.

Winning Best Actor at Cannes was Antonio Banderas, star of Oscar winner Pedro Almodóvar’s autobiographical “Pain & Glory” (October 4), who is long overdue for an Oscar nomination. Banderas gives a subtle,...

Last year’s final foreign-language Oscar nominations — for what is now called the Best International Feature Film category — were culled from 87 submissions from around the world, and this year’s crop could be close to that number. The Academy will announce its list of eligible submissions after the official deadline of today, October 1.

Leading the crowded field is “Parasite” (Neon) from Bong Joon Ho (“Okja”), who returned to Cannes and took home the Palme d’Or, the first Korean filmmaker to do so. He could also become the first Oscar nominee from South Korea. Neon is pushing the film in multiple categories, hoping for the range of Oscar nods scored by Netflix’s “Roma” and Amazon’s “Cold War” last year.

Winning Best Actor at Cannes was Antonio Banderas, star of Oscar winner Pedro Almodóvar’s autobiographical “Pain & Glory” (October 4), who is long overdue for an Oscar nomination. Banderas gives a subtle,...

Hungary has chosen Barnabás Tóth’s “Those Who Remained,” which premiered at the Telluride Film Festival, as its official entry in the Oscars’ International Feature Film category. Variety’s reviewer described the drama as “achingly tender” and “an exquisite, poignantly performed tale.” Menemsha Films will release the film in North America.

Set in Budapest after the end of World War II, the film centers on the relationship between two Hungarians struggling to cope with the aftermath of the Holocaust. Aladár (Károly Hajduk) is a “gentle but haunted” middle-aged doctor, whose wife and sons died in the concentration camps; Klára (Abigél Szőke) – in furious denial over the loss of her parents – is a 16-year-old “force of nature,” who “storms her way into his life,” Variety film critic Alissa Simon writes in her review.

“[The film] taps into a deep well of honestly earned emotion as it tells the story of two traumatized survivors...

Many films deal with the suffering of the Holocaust years, but far fewer focus on those who managed to return from the camps. The achingly tender Hungarian drama “Those Who Remained” fills that gap. Perceptively directed by Barnabás Tóth, . Set in the period between 1948 and ’53, the period drama also takes on the purges of Hungarian politician Mátyás Rákosi’s Communist regime. Following its world premiere in Telluride, this exquisite, poignantly performed tale will be released in North American by Menemsha Films.

After the war, the gentle but haunted Dr. Aládar “Aldó” Kőrner (Károly Hajduk), 42, returns to his ob-gyn hospital practice. His wife and two small boys perished in the camps, and he lives alone, with only his medical journals for company, until Klára (Abigél Szőke), a 16-year-old force of nature, storms her way into his life.

We first meet Klára, nicknamed Sunny, in Aldó’s clinic and she’s definitely not radiating good humor.

Colorado’s San Juan Mountains will soon be alive with the sights and sounds of movies.

The line-up for the 46th Telluride Film Festival has been announced.

The starry slate includes the world premiere of “Judy,” director Rupert Goold’s biopic about the final months of Judy Garland’s life with Renée Zellweger in the title role. “Maybe because Renée hasn’t done a huge number of things in the past few years, she’s saved up all of her tenderness, all of that vulnerability to bring to this role,” Telluride co-director Julie Huntsinger told Variety.

“Judy” is certainly not the only world premiere during this year’s festivities, which run from Friday, Aug. 30 to Monday, Sept. 2. James Mangold’s real-life car racing drama “Ford v Ferrari” starring Matt Damon and Christian Bale is on the bill. Edward Norton will premiere his directorial debut “Motherless Brooklyn,” with an ensemble including Gugu Mbatha-Raw,...

The Cannes Film Festival always introduces a selection of ultimate foreign-language contenders for what is now called the Best International Feature Film Oscar. Last year’s final Oscar nominations were culled from 87 submissions from around the world, and this year’s crop could be close to that number. The Academy will announce its list of eligible submissions after the deadline of October 1.

Bong Joon Ho (“Okja”) returned to Cannes with “Parasite” (Neon) and took home the Palme d’Or, the first Korean filmmaker to do so. The movie earned raves from critics and was the inevitable Oscar submission from South Korea, which has yet to score a foreign-language nomination. Neon is pushing the film in multiple categories, hoping for the range of Oscar nods scored by Netflix’s “Roma” and Amazon’s “Cold War” last year.

Winning Best Actor at Cannes was Antonio Banderas, star of Oscar winner Pedro Almodóvar...