For the 80 or so countries this year, the goal is simple; make it to the shortlist of 15 nominees; Easier said than done as the process, a complicated one involving voting percentages, sometimes spurs a number of snubs and surprises every given year. With that being said, these ten seem like the obvious: Lukas Dhont’s “Close” (Belgium)Park Chan-wook’s “Decision to Leave” (South Korea)Alejandro Inarritu’s “Bardo” (Mexico)Carla Simon’s “Alcarras” (Spain)Cristi Mungiu’s “RMN” (Romania)Marie Kreutzer’s “Corsage” (Luxembourg)Ali Abassi’s “Holy Spider” (Denmark)S.S. Rajamouli‘s RRR” (India)Santiago Mitre’s “Argentina 1985” (Argentina)Alli Haapasalo‘s “Girl Picture” (Finland) Nathaniel Rogers over at The Film Experience has had, year-in and year-out, the best coverage of this category. He actually tries to watch every single submission. The last ten winners of this category have been Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Thomas Vinterberg, Alfonso Cuaron, Bong Joon-ho, Sebastien Lelio, Asghar Farhadi (twice), Pawel Pawlikowski, Paolo Sorrentino, Michael Haneke, and Laszlo Nemes. Not too surprising, Anne Thompson is pushing hard for India to submit “RRR” as its Best International Film entry. This would make a lot of sense given that the action film has been a sensation on Netflix with US audiences. The French submission is a little trickier. There weren’t many French standouts this year at Cannes, although Mia Hansen-Love’s “One Fine Morning” did garner some great reviews from English critics. This year’s submission from France might come from the Venice Film Festival, especially if Alice Diop’s film turns out to be as good as the buzz suggests. The French contenders: Alice Diop’s “Saint Omer”Mia Hansen-Love’s “One Fine Morning”Claire Denis’ “Both Sides of the Blade”Léonor Seraille‘s “Mother and Son”Romain Gavras’ “Athena” Contribute Hire me
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