There are only a few hours left for the 2025 Academy Awards ceremony, which will be held tomorrow, Monday, to celebrate the most important films in 2024. While the different awards of the awards are mostly English films in English, we find a single film award in foreign languages, whose name was recently changed to the Oscar Best International Film.
The award for the best international movie this year is competing for 5 works from Latvia, Denmark, France, Germany and Brazil, each with a different taste, one of which is an animated film as well. This category of Oscars may not represent the best English -speaking films of the year accurately, but it is a measure of the most important international films that have received attention from the audience and many international festivals alike.
It is noted in the films this year the absence of Arab acting, despite the arrival of the Palestinian film “from the distance zero” to the short list, which presents stories filmed by Palestinian directors after the Flood of Al -Aqsa.
Emilia Pérez- France
“Emilia Pérez” is one of the most fortunate in winning the Academy Award, and was previously shown at the Cannes Film Festival, where he won the Jury Award, as well as the Best Actress of Carla Sophia Gascon.
The film revolves around the cooperation between lawyer Rita Mora Castro (Zoe Saandana) and Emilia Perez (Carla Sophia Gascon), after the latter deposits gangs and tries to start a new life for herself and her family, and works in civil society as an institution concerned with the search for forcibly disappeared in Mexico. However, she cannot eventually escape its bloody and violent past.
The movie “Emilia Perez” combines the two cinematic types: gangs and music, which distinguishes it from many competing films in the Oscars this year. He is a Spanish spokesperson and revolves around Mexico, while actress and singer Selena Gomez, who recently made a stir in the United States because of her sympathy for Mexican immigrants, and her anger at Trump’s anti -immigrant policies. This may be likely to win many awards, given the dissatisfaction of many Hollywood celebrities from the president.
“Flow”- Latvia
“Flow” is an animation and adventure film, and it revolves around a group of animals, led by a cat, trying to survive after the globe rain was flooded with a flood, as humans disappeared, and water rates have risen to the point that forced animals to learn navigation, so that you can survive.
The film was first shown at the Cannes Film Festival in the “Look”, and won many awards, especially from the animation festivals. It is the first movie from Latvia to win the Golden Globe Award, and also the first movie from Latvia to nominate any Oscar, and it is also competing for the Oscar Best Animation Film.
“The flow” of a silent film, its industry did not give their animals voices or words like many other animated films, but the most important thing that distinguishes it is the philosophy that moves its characters, which is the philosophy of salvation that makes creatures of different races to synergy together, and learn to flow through the wide universe until it literally reaches the survival beach.
The Girl with the Needle
The movie “The Girl with the Needle” was shown for the first time during the Cannes Film Festival in the official competition, and it was nominated for the Best International Film in both Oscars and Golden Globe, even if it did not win the latter.
The film takes place in the last days of the First World War, where we get to know Caroline who lives on the subsistence after her husband stopped her correspondence during his presence on the front, so she thinks that he died, and she begins to deal as a widow, and demands that the Lord of her work to work widows, but he refuses to not prove the death of her husband, and begins to exploit her, which enters her into more complications that she forced to make decisions that change her life Forever.
The film was only filmed in black and white, which contributes to clarifying the tragic life of the heroine, which represents many women who become victims of decisions that they do not make, such as war, or unfair work laws that separate them and their wage colleagues, and the class that governs society.
“I’m still here”- Brazil
The movie “I’m still here” is expected to be the black horse for this year, although it was drowned in the locality, as it deals with a harsh story from the Brazilian history, but he was able to get out of the narrow framework of his country to become one of the most important 2024 films. He won the script award from the Venice Film Festival, and the film’s heroine won Golden Globe for the best actress in a major role. In addition to his candidacy for Oscar Best International Film, he is also a candidate for the Best Actress Award in a major role, and the best movie in general, to become the first Brazilian movie to receive this honor.
“I am still here,” adapted from the true story of the Brazilian politician “Robins Pavia”, who retired from politics and sought to live a quiet and happy life with his big family, but overnight he becomes a victim of the Brazilian dictatorial regime in the seventies, where he is arrested, then he completely disappears and the authorities deny any knowledge of his place. His wife or widow must struggle to support her family, and at the same time continuing to demand the government to announce the location of her husband, or hand her body, to turn into a political activist and one of the most important symbols of the Brazilian opposition.
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”- Germany
“The Seed of the Sacred Fig”, the latest film of the Iranian director Mohammad Raoulouf, who was sentenced before the film was shown directly at the Cannes Film Festival with 8 years of prison, but he managed to escape before implementing the verdict to attend the red carpet for the premiere of his movie, which won the Special Jury award.
The film mixes reality and imagination, and we find documentary footage of Iranian protests in 2022-2023, mixing with the imaginary story of an investigation judge in the Revolutionary Court in Tehran, suddenly losing his pistol and suspected of his two daughters. In order to force them to recognize this crime, which not only threatens his job, but his parental authority and his respect for himself, his family kidnaps to a remote place, and decides to put them under pressure as any accused or accused in a criminal case, but the events accelerate in unexpected directions.
The film tries to dismantle the reasons behind the protests, by placing this small family as an example of modern society, to represent the dynamics of the ambiguous relationships between the father, his wife and his two daughters, a mirror of these relations between power and members of society. When the family complies with the father, it appears as an ideal affectionate person, but as soon as one of its members appears a rebellion gesture, it turns into a monster capable of harming everyone.
Most of the films nominated for the award for the best international movie this year focus on women’s issues, from two friends in “Emilia Perez” trying to change society and fight forced disappearances, to the “girl with a needle” in which the heroine is forced to carry out the most heinous actions as a result of being vulnerable in her society, and the political activist who defends her husband’s right to a death certificate in “I am still here”, and even Iranian women protests against power “The sacred fig seed.”
However, the closest of these films to win the award is “I am still here”, which not only provides a harsh realistic story, is still repeated in many countries around the world despite the change of time, but also one of the best representative performances in the year.
(Tagstotranslate) Art (T) Cinema (T) the American (T), USA