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Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

While Gwyneth Paltrow’s ski crash trial didn’t exactly deliver the same level of celebrity drama as Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard, the eight-day showdown in Park City, Utah, still managed to offer plenty of bizarre moments in the lead-up to Thursday’s climax where the jury ruled Paltrow was not liable in plaintiff Dr. Terry Sanderson’s civil suit alleging she had “hit and run” crashed into the retired doctor on a ski slope, resulting in ongoing health problems.

Below are nine of the oddest, funniest and most memorable moments from the proceedings, which managed to take a relatively routine ski slope run-in and turn it into a surreal legal spectacle. And yes, they are in order from the least to the most wild.

9. “I wish you well …” After solemnly nodding as the trial’s verdict was read, Paltrow appeared to whisper to Sanderson some parting words after...

Polish production company Gigant Films will remake Titas Laucius’ feature debut, “Parade.” It will start shooting this year under the working title “Divorcees” (“Rozwodnicy”)

The Lithuanian film, inspired by Laucius’ own family, world premiered at Tallinn Black Night Film Festival in November. It sees Miglė, whose ex-husband, after years of living apart, wants to remarry in church. In order to do so, the long-divorced couple needs to get an annulment. Suddenly, they are faced with a church tribunal investigating their past. And their own memories.

“When I first heard about this project, and then watched the film, I saw the potential for feel-good comedy,” said producer Radosław Grabik.

“Poland [as a predominantly Catholic country] feels like a great fit for this story. We won’t be demonizing the clergy, but we want to gently mock the hypocrisy of everyone involved. Including all these people who claim to care about church weddings, even though they aren’t even religious,...

Cinedigm and Bloody Disgusting have slashed up a deal with Reason8 Films for North American rights to the throwback slasher Pensive out of the ongoing EFM in Berlin.

The bloody slasher inspired by Friday the 13th with be a Screambox Original.

The Lithuanian teen horror was directed by Jonas Trukanas and stars Gabija Bargailaite (Pilgrims).

Inspired by local legends, Pensive, which premiered in Baltic Competition in Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, follows a group of privileged high school classmates. After these classmates destroy a set of life-size wooden statues during a wild graduation party, a mysterious masked killer begins picking the group off one by one.

“Gory and glorious, Pensive is a gritty throwback to the 80s and the heyday of slasher cinema”, said Brad Miska, Managing Director of Bloody Disgusting. “Calling back to Friday the 13th, the filmmakers took what was great about the era and give it a...

Kit Hesketh-Harvey was one of those surprisingly rare performers whose personality was the same on stage as off. When I saw him in the many revues he would write and perform, the audience basked in his humour and genuine warmth.

You could say that Hesketh-Harvey was the last of the old-style Vaudevillians, keeping alive the spirit of Noël Coward, while unafraid to surprise his audience by stepping into the caustic territory of Barry Humphries. He always revelled in that quintessentially English humour, self-deprecating but biting, drawing on a world of shared references from British culture, while at the same time carving out its own originality.

His version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “A Policeman’s Lot Is Not a Happy One” turned the jolly jape of a song into a critique of modern-day policing. “They want evidence that can’t be circumvented. So, invent it.” Delivered with such a smile,...

Exclusive: M88 has signed Dark Winds star Jessica Matten.

A direct descendant of Cuthbert Grant, the first rebel Metis leader famously known for the Battle of the Seven Oaks in Canada, Matten is one of the founding members of The Indigenous Film Academy, the first and only Indigenous Film and stunt combat academy in North America in partnership with Old Sun College out of Siksika Nation, part of the Blackfoot Confederacy.

The academy supports emerging and aspiring First Nations, Metis, and Inuit artists so they can effectively and successfully gain expertise and experience to establish the foundations of a professional film career.

Currently, Matten can be seen in AMC’s Dark Winds in the role of Bernadette Manuelito, a Navajo police Sargeant, opposite Zahn McClarnon and Kiowa Gordon. The series, produced by Robert Redford, George R.R. Martin, and Graham Roland, was renewed for a second season set to premiere in 2023.

Previously,...

Reason8 handles worldwide sales on the film.

Lithuania has selected Laurynas Bareisa’s Pilgrims as its entry to the international feature film category at the 2023 Academy Awards.

Pilgrims won the best film award when it debuted in the Horizons section at the 2021 Venice Film Festival. Subsequent festival prizes included best screenplay at last year’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival.

It was then nominated for 11 prizes at this year’s Lithuanian Film Awards, winning four – best film, best director and screenplay for Bareisa, and best actor for Giedrius Kiela.

UK-based Reason8 is handling world sales on the film, and has previously...

Reason8 handles sales on the title.

London-based sales agent Reason8 has scored key deals on Laurynas Bareiša’s debut, Lithuanian title Pilgrims, with Dekanalog picking up for North American theatrical distribution, and HBO taking rights for Central and Eastern Europe.

Dekanalog will release the title theatrically in the US in early 2023, while HBO releases in Central and Eastern Europe in August 2022.

Pilgrims won the Venice Horizons award for best film in 2021. It follows a man and woman united by a common tragedy – the death of his brother and her boyfriend – who find themselves tormented by the past.

It is produced...

Pilgrims (2021).For over fifty years since its inception in the early 1970s, New Directors/New Films has served as a formidable platform for emerging voices in world cinema. Often a bolder, more daring cousin to the New York Film Festival, each spring its lineups offer globe-trotting samples of first and second independently produced features and shorts. It’s a small oasis one visits to glimpse the future of movies, one that’s been home to the early works of directors as disparate as Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Christopher Nolan, Wong Kar-wai, and Kelly Reichardt. In a strong edition, as this one was, its selection will sponge something of our zeitgeist and spotlight titles redefining and defying conventional genres. One such example this year was Laurynas Bareiša’s Pilgrims, winner of the Orizzonti section at the Venice Film Festival. The film follows Paulius and Indre (Giedrius Kiela and Gabija Bargailaite), two thirty-somethings from...

“Samuel’s Travels,” directed by Latvian/Armenian filmmaker Aik Karapetian, has been acquired by HBO Central Europe. The deal was signed by the Copenhagen-based LevelK, who picked up international sales rights on the film in September, according to Film New Europe.

The acquisition by HBO Central Europe, with a license period set to start in the autumn, will cover Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Slovenia.

“Samuels Travels,” a darkly humorous story of a lone traveller’s journey gone terribly wrong, is Karapetian’s fourth feature film. The leading roles are played by Belgian actor Kevin Janssens and Latvian actress Laura Siliņa, among a largely Latvian cast.

The film was produced by Mistrus Media of Latvia in coproduction with Polar Bear of Belgium, and it was funded by the National Film Center of Latvia, the State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia,...

Since the breakup of the Soviet Union and the loss of arts funding, the Lithuanian national cinema has struggled to make a dent in the Western festival circuit, though that may be changing. Trickle-down from venue-hunting international productions, more generous tax incentives, and co-production agreements have the potential to cultivate a new generation of filmmakers in the same kind of fertile dramatic soil from which, for instance, the Romanian New Wave was harvested: contested historical trauma and an ambivalent transition to the Eurozone.

Continue reading ‘Pilgrims’ Review: Laurynas Bareisa’s Promising Debut Retraces The Steps Of Tragedy Through Memory & Grief [Ndnf] at The Playlist.

Film at Lincoln Center and The Museum of Modern Art has set Audrey Diwan’s Happening and The African Desperate by Martine Syms will bookend the 51st edition of their collaboration, New Directors/New Films running April 20–May 1 in NYC.

The festival will introduce 26 features and 11 shorts and total of 39 directors — 21 of which are women.

“Portraits of individuals and communities navigating uncertain and turbulent circumstances in pursuit of freedom, self-determination, and survival set a remarkably contemplative tone to the lineup,” said La Frances Hui, curator of MoMa’s film department and event co-char.

Happening (L’Événement), winner of the 2021 Venice International Film Festival’s Golden Lion, is the portrait of a young woman attempting to secure an illegal abortion in 1960s provincial France. It was acquired by IFC Films and will be released May 6.

The African Desperate, a debut feature from Syms, rushes through 24 hours in the life of protagonist Palace...

Golden Lion winner “Happening” will open the 2022 New Directors/New Films Festival, Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art announced Tuesday.

Now in its 51st year, the New Directors/New Films Festival screens the best films made by young filmmakers, many of which tend to be their debut features. The festival has served as an early showcase for many notable directors, including Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Kelly Reichardt, Pedro Almodóvar, Spike Lee, Lynne Ramsay, Michael Haneke, Wong Kar Wai, Guillermo del Toro and Luca Guadagnino. This year, the festival will screen 26 features and 11 shorts.

“Portraits of individuals and communities navigating uncertain and turbulent circumstances in pursuit of freedom, self-determination, and survival set a remarkably contemplative tone for the lineup,” 2022 Nd/Nf co-chair and MoMa department of film curator La Frances Hui said in a statement. “This year’s new directors look inward and draw on events past and present...

Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF) took place as a hybrid event from November 4-14.

French director Samuel Theis’ Softie has won the Golden Alexander-Theo Angelopoulos for best film at Greece’s Thessaloniki International Film Festival (TIFF) which took place as a hybrid event from November 4-14. The award is a cash prize of €10,000.

The French production, which premiered in Cannes’ Critics Week, follows Johnny, a sensitive and intelligent 10-year-old boy living with his single mother, as he searches for a father figure in his new school teacher.

The international competition jury headed by Belgian film maker Nanouk Leopold...

Samuel Theis’ “Softie” won the top prize at the 62nd Thessaloniki Film Festival, which wrapped Sunday night with a ceremony in Greece’s second city.

The film, which premiered in Cannes’ Critics’ Week section, was awarded the Golden Alexander and a €10,000 cash prize by a jury comprised of writer-director Nanouk Leopold, sound designer Roland Vajs and actor Michelle Valley.

The Special Jury Award was given to “Clara Sola,” by Natalie Álvarez Mesén, while the Special Jury Award for best director went to Lorenzo Vigas for “The Box.”

The award for best actress went to Sofia Kokkali for her performance in “Moon, 66 Questions,” by director Jacqueline Lentzou. Aliocha Reinert won the prize for best actor for his role in Golden Alexander winner “Softie.” The award for best screenplay went to Laurynas Bareiša for his film “Pilgrims,” while a special mention was given to Alexandre Koberidze for “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?...

When the curtain rises Thursday on the 62nd edition of the Thessaloniki Film Festival, it will be a long-awaited return to form for one of the oldest fests on the circuit, after a surge in Covid-19 cases last fall forced the organizers to pivot from a hybrid to a fully online edition.

Attempting to sum up his feelings on the eve of opening night, festival director Orestis Andreadakis was gripped by emotion, using words like “strange,” “happy” and “anxious” in the same breath.

“It’s as if you go out from the hospital, this period of pandemic, and you don’t know how to speak to your friends, you don’t know how to be in love again, you don’t know how to speak with your relatives and parents and children,” Andreadakis tells Variety. “But at the same time, you have a big appetite for life.”

For the veteran film critic,...

The strand showcases films from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The Baltic competition of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival will screen 12 films, including five world premieres, at the festival’s 25th edition.

The competition showcases films from the three Baltic states - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. There will be five Estonian films, with four from Lithuania and three from Latvia.

Scroll down for the full line-up

The five world premieres are Ivar Murd’s u.Q., which tells the story of Estonian funk-soul-jazz producer Uku Kuut’s; Emilis Vėlyvis’ Lithuanian crime thriller The Generation Of Evil, set in a small Latvian...

HappeningIn Competition(Jury: Bong Joon-ho, Saverio Costanzo, Virginie Efira, Cynthia Erivo, Sarah Gadon, Alexander Nanau, Chloé Zhao)Golden Lion – Happening (Audrey Diwan) | Read our reviewSilver Lion (Grand Jury Prize) – The Hand of God (Paolo Sorrentino) | Read our reviewSilver Lion (Best Director) – Jane Campion (The Power of the Dog) | Read our reviewCoppa Volpi for Best Actress – Penélope Cruz (Parallel Mothers) | Read our reviewCoppa Volpi for Best Actor – John Arcilla (On The Job: The Missing 8)Best Screenplay – Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Lost Daughter)Special Jury Prize – The Hole (Michelangelo Frammartino) | Read our reviewMarcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress – Filippo Scotti (The Hand of God)Orizzonti(Jury: Jasmila Žbanić, Mona Fastvold, Shahram Mokri, Josh Siegel, Nadia Terranova)Orizzonti Award for Best Film – Pilgrims (Laurynas Bareisa)Orizzonti Award for Best Director – Éric Gravel (A Plein Temps)Special Orizzonti Jury Prize – El Gran Movimiento (Kiro Russo) | Read our reviewOrizzonti Award for Best Actress...