Oscars 2027 International Feature Film Submissions By Country: UK, Argentina, Iran, Rwanda Among Latest To Declare

A State Film by Roland Sejko is Albania’s submission for the 2027 Academy Awards.

The film captures 40 years of Enver Hoxha’s communist regime through the very images the regime produced to glorify itself. The film had its world premiere in the Notti Veneziane section of Giornate degli Autori during the 82nd Venice International Film Festival and was produced by Cinecittà.

Born and raised in Albania, Sejko has worked with Istituto Luce since 1995, where he currently serves as editorial director of the Luce Historical Archive. He is the writer and director of several documentary films, many of which explore the creative use of archival footage.

Algeria has selected Yanis Koussim’s debut feature Roqia as its Oscar submission. The horror film debuted in the Critics’ Week competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

The film’s synopsis reads: In 1993, after a car crash leaves Ahmed amnesiac, he returns to his village, where nothing feels familiar—not his wife, not his children. His youngest, frightened by Ahmed’s bandaged face, fears him deeply. Each night, strange visitors whisper litanies in an unknown tongue. Who are they? And why does his so-called friend, the neighbour, make him feel so uneasy?

In the present, an ageing Raqi battles Alzheimer’s. As possessed people speak in foreign tongues and violence rises, Ahmed fears regaining memory, while the disciple fears his master’s decline may unleash an ancient evil.

Koussim directs from a screenplay he wrote. The cast includes Ali Namous, Akram Djeghim, Mostefa Djadjam, Hanaa Mansour, and Lydia Hanni. Farès Ladjimi (Supernova Films) produced the film, which is a France, Algeria, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia co-production.

The Armenian Film Academy has selected Tamara Stepanyan’s feature film In the Land of Arto as its entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards. The film follows Zahra Amir Ebrahimi, Camille Cottin, and Denis Lavant. The story follows Celine, who seeks to legalize her husband Arto’s death in Armenia, uncovering his lies about war service and desertion. Her quest through war-scarred lives reveals a deeper truth: how to properly lay a ghost to rest.

Australia has submitted First Light for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards. Written and directed by James J. Robinson, the film debuted at the Melbourne Film Festival, where it won the Blackmagic Design Best Australian Director Award. The title is Australia’s first-ever Tagalog-language Oscar submission and the first Filipino-Australian co-production. The film follows an elderly nun who witnesses a young construction worker’s fatal accident, compelling her to question the ethical principles of the institution she has devoted her life to.

Markus Schleinzer’s black-and-white period drama Rose won star Sandra Hüller the Silver Bear leading performance prize after its world premiere at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival. Set in 17th century Germany, she plays a mysterious soldier who appears in a secluded Protestant village amidst the turmoil of the Thirty Years’ War and declares himself to be the heir of a long-abandoned farmstead, eventually gaining the villagers’ acceptance — even as it all is built on lies. Mubi has North American rights to the pic, which Deadline’s critic Damon Wise called “a remarkable piece of work.” Hüller was previously Oscar-nominated for Best Actress for 2014’s Anatomy of a Fall. Read Deadline’s story here and watch the trailer below:

Lukas Dhont’s latest feature Coward, which world premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, gets Belgium’s submission spot after his previous film, 2022’s Close, was nominated in the category. The new pic is set during World War I and follows Pierre (Emmanuel Macchia), a soldier newly arrived at the front who is eager to prove himself. Behind the lines, he meets Francis (Valentin Campagne), who decides to lift the spirits of his comrades by putting together a theater show. While the violence continues, both try to find ways to escape the brutality of war, even if only for a moment. Mubi acquired North American rights to the pic and will release it in theaters December 25. Read Deadline’s story here, and watch the trailer below:

Álvaro Olmos Torrico’s The Condor Daughter (La hija cóndor) made it world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival and hit theaters in September 2026 in limited release. It follows Clara (Marisol Vallejo Montañor), a teenager growing up in a small indigenous community high in the Andes. Her adoptive mother Ana (María Magdalena Sanizo), a midwife, has taught her the ancient songs used to guide women through childbirth, melodies passed down for generations, but Clara dreams of becoming a folk music star in the big city. The pic won Best Film at Biarritz Latin American Film Festival, and Montañor took Best Actress at the Malaga and Guadalajara fests. Bolivia has been submitting films for Oscar consideration since the mid-1990s but has yet to earn a nomination in the international/foreign-language category. Watch the trailer here:

Feito Pipa, which won a pair of awards after its world premiere at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival (the Crystal Bear for Best Film, awarded by the Youth Jury, and a Grand Prix award in the Generation Kplus sidebar), was selected by the Brazilian Academy of Cinema. Allan Deberton directed the pic, which centers on Gugu (Yuri Gomes), a young queer teen passionate about soccer and dance who lives with his open-minded grandmother, Dilma (Teca Pereira), in the backlands of a coastal town. When circumstances arise that he might have to go live with his disapproving father, Gugu fights to keep his world intact. Brazil has reached the Oscar nomination stage in the category six times and is on a roll of late, winning the category in 2024 with Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here and scoring four Oscar noms in 2026 for Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent starring Wagner Moura.

German writer-director Valeska Grisebach‘s sophomore feature film The Dreamed Adventure was submitted for the race after the Bulgaria-set crime drama won the Jury Prize at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. The story is set in the Bulgaria-Türkiye border town of Svilengrad, where Grisebach spent five years doing research. It centers on Veska (Yana Radeva), who crosses paths with Said (Syuleyman Letifov), an old acquaintance whose car has been stolen. She brings him along to an excavation site where she is working as an archaeologist and eventually is pulled into Said’s shady world of organized crime that exists under the town’s surface. A co-production among Germany, France, Bulgaria and Austria, Janus Films has U.S. rights. Bulgaria has never advanced to the nomination stage in the Oscar category; its best effort was reaching the shortlist in 2009 with Stephan Komandarev’s The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner.

The Cambodia Oscar Selection Committee has chosen Becoming Human, which premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, as the country’s Oscar contenders. First-time feature writer-director Polen Ly’s film follows Thida (Savorn Serak), the guardian spirit of an abandoned theater that is facing demolition, who wanders through must choose between rebirth and her growing connection to a living man, Hai (Piseth Chhun), while their city and country transform around them. Cambodian has had one film score an Oscar nomination with Rithy Panh’s The Missing Picture in 2014. Watch the trailer here:

Cameroon has selected Mabanda by Kang Quintus as its submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards.

The film’s synopsis reads: After the tragic death of her mother, a pregnant teen – Mojoko — is haunted by grief and trapped in the suffocating grip of her emotionally manipulative and abusive father. Shunned by her community, she is drawn into a dangerous slum underworld, lured by the false comfort of street life. Mojoko spirals into isolation, her grief masked by silence and carefully hidden scars. She slips between hallucination and harsh reality as she searches for safety — but the further she searches, the deeper she sinks.

The film’s cast features Nchini Sylvia-bright Bih, Kang Quintus, Precious Nana, Ngwa Bernard, Faith Fidel, Becky Takang, and Dephine Tande.

Quintus directed and produced the film. The screenplay was written by Lynno Lovert.

Geneviève Dulude-De Celles wrote and directed Nina Roza, which had its world premiere at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival and where Dulude-De Celles won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay. The plot centers on a Bulgarian expat (Galin Stoev) sent to his former country by a major art collector to assess the value of an 8-year-old girl’s viral art in a village there. The return trip after 30 years away forces him to confront his past. The Canada-Bulgaria-Italy-Belgium co-production, which is heading to AFI Fest in Los Angeles later this year, was among 17 Canadian films submitted for consideration to the Oscar-voting committee organized by Telefilm Canada. The country has been nominated seven times in the category, winning in 2003 for Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions. Watch the trailer here:

Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Soumsoum, The Night Of The Stars, which had its world premiere at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival, has been selected as Chad’s entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards.

The drama unfolds against the backdrop of mountains of the Ennedi Massif in the northeast of Haroun’s native central African country of Chad, which carry the memory of a forgotten past and whisper ancient legends.

Kellou, a young woman from a nearby village, is troubled by haunting visions that set her apart from those around her. Her world shifts the day she meets Aya, an outcast rejected by the community. As the villagers turn against their growing sisterhood, Kellou must stand up for Aya and face the hostility of her own people while fighting for their freedom.

The cast features Maïmouna Miawama, Ériq Ebouaney (Lumumba), and Achouackh Abakar Souleymane. Haroun co-wrote the screenplay with Laurent Gaudé, whose dystopian novel Dog 51 has recently been brought to the big screen.

The film is produced by Florence Stern at Paris-based Pili Films in coproduction with Haroun’s Chad-based company Goï-Goï Productions.

Manuela Martelli’s The Meltdown had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival and is her follow-up to the Pinochet-era political thriller Chile ‘76. The new film, set in 1992 just after the end of Pinochet’s regime, centers on 9-year-old Inés (Maya O’Rourke) who is staying at her grandparents’ Andean ski resort. She befriends Hanna (Maia Rae Domagala), a German teenager training to be a competitive skier. When Hanna vanishes and her mother (Saskia Rosendahl) enlists Inés’ help as a translator, the search exposes hidden truths that harken to her country’s dark history. Kino Lorber will release the pic in the U.S. Chile has made the nominations list in the category twice, first in 2012 with Pablo Larraín’s No and then winning the Oscar in 2017 with Sebastián Lelio’s A Fantastic Woman. Watch the trailer here:

Gala del Sol’s debut feature Rains Over Babel, which she wrote, directed and produced, had its world premiere in the Next section of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. The pic reimagines Dante’s Inferno with a queer twist, set in the mythical, surrealist city of Maya — a retro-futuristic version of Cali, Colombia. The action center son Babel, an iconic dive bar that acts as a purgatory for lost souls presided over by La Flaca (Saray Rebolledo), the city’s Grim Reaper. De Sol, who attended Chapman University’s film school in Orange County, CA, was previously a finalist for the Student Academy Awards in 2018 for her graduate short Transient Passengers. Colombia has been nominated once in the Oscar category, in 2015 for Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent. Watch the trailer here:

Hana Jušić’s second feature premiered in competition at the 2025 Locarno Flm Festival, where it won Best Performance for stars Manuela Martelli and Ana Marija Veselčić. Set at the turn of the 20th century, God Will Not Help (Bog Neće Pomoći) follows Teresa (Martelli), a Spanish-speaker Chilean woman who shows up in a remote Croatian community of shepherds. She claims to be the widow of the family’s eldest son who had moved away years ago in search of a better life. She is met by Milena (Veselčić) while the rest of the clan is away with their flock, and the pair find that they not only are sisters-in-law but have more in common. The family, meanwhile, is not entirely welcoming. Croatia has been submitting films to Oscar consideration since the early 1990s but hasn’t landed a nomination. Watch the God Will Not Help trailer here:

Cuba has selected Malecón by Carlos Larrazabal as its official submission for Best International Film at the 99th edition of the Oscars.

The film follows Elvis, who returns to his neighborhood in Havana after serving a 10-year prison sentence for killing his abusive stepfather. His best friend, Martin, helps him navigate the struggle of reintegrating into society, but things become complicated when he crosses paths with his childhood sweetheart, Yuli.

The film was a co-production between Kilo Vivo (Spain), IGNA Entertainment (USA), and i4films (Cuba). It has screened at the Miami, Seville and Silver Sea Film Festivals, and was shortlisted for five Platinum Awards, including Best First Opera.

Cyprus has selected Myrsini Aristidou’s Hold Onto Me as its official entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards.

The Cyprus Deputy Ministry of Culture confirmed the pick this week.

The film stars won the Audience Award in the World Cinema Dramatic category at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival. The story follows 11-year-old Iris, who learns her estranged father, Aris, is back in town for his own father’s funeral. Determined to know him, Iris tracks him down to a dilapidated shipyard, where he’s been keeping to himself. What begins as a stubborn attempt to reconnect slowly unfolds into a fragile bond.

Christos Passalis, Maria Petrova, Aulona Loupa, Jenny Sallo, Nikolas Metaxas and Achilleas Grammatikopoulos star in the film.

Pepa Ljubojacki’s documentary feature If Pigeons Turned to Gold, which world premiered in the Forum section at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival, was shot over a period of five years and followed Ljubojacki’s brother and two cousins as their addictions begin to destroy their relationships and homes. The Czech Film and Television Academy made the selection, saying about the pic: “Using the DIY aesthetics, the director interlinks diary shots, stylized memories, live photos, as well as graphic collages, and without any sentiment tries to understand the reasons for their fall and also the impact of it on the whole family.” The country has won the Oscar category three times, most recently in 1996 with Jan Svěrák’s Kolya, and last made the shortlist in 2024 with Jiří Mádl’s Prague Spring-set Waves. Read Deadline’s story here.

As part of the Academy’s new rules, May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown was already eligible for the Oscar category by virtue of its winning the Golden Lion at the 2026 Venice Film Festival. But Denmark doubled down, officially submitting it to the race. The post-World War II psychological drama stars Mathilde Arcel (who won the Best Actress prize in Venice) as a young nanny and housemaid who is about to marry her wealthy older employer, a widower still haunted by the memory of his late wife. Amid the jubilation of the liberation, there is a darker side, as women who fraternized with German soldiers are tracked down and brutally publicly shamed. A painful secret from Marie’s past threatens to catch up with her. Denmark has been on a streak at the Oscars, winning in the international category four times in its history most recently in 2020 with Thomas Vinterberg’s Drunk. Since then, it has been nominated or made the shortlist every year except for 2026, when David Borenstein and Pavel Talankin’s doc Mr. Nobody Against Putin fell short before going on to be nominated and win in the Documentary Feature category.

Andrés Farías’ drama Melodrama stars Mercedes Morales and Jimmy Jean-Louis (Heroes) and centers on Sonia, a widow forced to downsize and deal with grief after her husband’s death who meets and falls for Haitian construction worker and poet Aimé. The relationship awakens Sonia’s passions but also reveals the tensions between the Dominican and Haitian communities in the Dominican Republic. The pic had its U.S. premiere at the Miami Film Festival and was selected for the Oscars by the Dominican Republic Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences. The country has not yet made it to the nomination stage; it submittedPepe for last year’s race.Watch the trailer here:

The Academia de las Artes Audiovisuales y Cinematográficas del Ecuador has selected Ana Cristina Barragán’s The Ivy (Hiedra) for this year’s competition. It marks the second selection for Barragán, who was submitted for Alba in 2017; Ecuador has never made it to the nomination stage. In The Ivy, which world premiered at the 2025 Venice Film Festival in the Horizons sidebar, Simone Bucio stars as Azucena, a 30-year-old who spies on the teenagers of a group home and driven by a traumatic event from her own youth. She focuses on Julio (Francis Eddú Llumiquinga), who is 17, and they connect through their trauma and more.

Abu Bakr Shawky’s third feature The Stories is Egypt’s choice for the Best International Feature Film Oscar race. Set in the country’s turbulent years starting in 1967, it stars MobLand actor Amir El-Masry as an aspiring Egyptian concert pianist who connects with an Austrian girl (Valerie Pachner) as pen pals. They form a long-distance friendship that is viewed with suspicion by his relatives develops into something deeper, as the young Austrian woman encourages the pianist to follow his musical dreams. Karim Kassem, Ahmed Kamal, Sabry Fawaz, Sherif El Dessouky, Khaled Mokhtar, Ahmed El Azaar and Amr Abed co-star in the pic produced by Cinenovo, Film Clinic, Lagoonie Film Production and others. Egypt has been submitting films for Oscar consideration since the late 1950s but has yet to score a nomination. Read Deadline’s post here, and watch the teaser trailer below:

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Arturo Lopez Rodas’s Vertices has been selected as El Salvador’s Oscar entry. This is the first time El Salvador has submitted a film for the Academy Awards.

The film’s synopsis reads: Good old Andrés passed away. Ricardo, José and Francisco meet at his funeral, after not seeing each other in almost thirty years. They used to be close, but life pulled them apart. The three of them agree to get a cup of coffee right afterwards and catch up, for old time’s sake. Soon enough, they start to behave like they were never estranged, visiting old meeting places while discussing life’s trivialities and the inevitability of death.

Francisco Martínez, Ángel Flamenco, and Francisco Graniello star in the film.

Our Erika, the debut film from onetime Student Academy Award winner German Golub, has been selected by the Estonian Film Institute for the country’s official submission. The biopic centers on the story of Estonian Olympic track cyclist Erika Salumäe (played by Karolin Jürise), who after winning a gold medal for the USSR in 1988 won the first-ever gold for the newly independent Estonia at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona. (Another biopic of sorts about a female Soviet gold medalist, Latvia’s Ulya, about basketball star Uļjana Semjonova, is also in the mix, a point Golub made in the institute’s press release). Estonia has been nominated in the category once before, for 2024’s Tangerines from Zaza Urushadze.

Finland’s submission for the International Feature Film Race is Markus Lehmusruusu’s The Squirrel. The film will screen later this month at Fantastic Fest. The second feature film written and directed by Markus Lehmusruusu ( Ricky Rapper and the Strongman), The Squirrel is a sci-fi feature set in the far future. The official synopsis reads: “In a sterile world without nature or animals, Pasi (Miro Lopperi), a lonely designer of synthetic pets, unexpectedly discovers the last surviving squirrel. He decides to defy the rules and keep it alive, but things don’t go quite according to plan: the squirrel gets depressed, Pasi falls in love, and his carefully controlled life begins to unravel.”

Oscar-nominated Leviathan and Loveless filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur premiered in May at Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix. The tense, twisty pic follows a high-powered Russian executive (Dmitriy Mazurov) whose meticulously controlled existence unravels when professional crises, global chaos and marital betrayal converge. Iris Lebedeva, Varvara Shmykova, Juris Žagars also star. It was selected by France’s National Cinema Centre from a shortlist that also included Antonin Baudry’s political biopic De Gaulle, Louis Clichy’s Le Corset, Marine Atlan’s La Gradiva and L’Inconnue by Arthur Harari. Mubi will release the French-German-Latvian co-production also was included in Germany’s International Oscar longlist, on November 20 in North America. France has won the international category nine times — though not since Indochine in 1992 — and has scored 40 nominations, including the past two years with Emilia Pérez and It Was Just an Accident. Read Deadline’s review here, and watch the Minotaur trailer below:

Georgia’s National Film Center has selected director Levan Koguashvili’s Guria as Georgia’s entry for the International Feature Film Oscar race. The film debuted in the Spotlight section at this year’s Venice Film Festival. The film is set just as the Soviet Union has collapsed, but the promised prosperity has not reached Guria, Western Georgia.

The synopsis continues: “Electricity flickers between light and darkness, policemen steal trolleybus cables to sell as scrap and widower Zuriko, a 45-year-old hazelnut farmer, refuses the paltry sums Italian buyers offer for his harvest. His best friend Gela helps him search for better buyers and introduces him to potential wives, who inevitably fail to satisfy Zuriko’s disapproving ex mother-in-law. After surviving a highway robbery, Zuriko pursues Maya, the village music teacher. Meanwhile, Zuriko’s son Achi suffers his own heartbreak when the girl he loves, Eka, is “kidnapped” and marries his rival, Besso. In Guria, Zuriko’s world shifts constantly between hardship and absurdity, beauty pageants and violence, love and sadness.”

Koguashvili has described the film as a tale about “ordinary people who live under harsh conditions yet manage to preserve their humanity.”

Sandra Woller wrote and directed Everytime, which won the top award of the Un Certain Regard sidebar at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. Birgit Minichmayr, Tristan López, Lotte Keiling and Carla Hüttermann star in the drama, about a family struggling to put the pieces back together after the tragic death of the oldest daughter. They take a trip to Tenerife for the vacation they never got where their past begins to resurface. The pic will get TIFF and New York Film Festival runs, and distributor 1-2 Special will give it a qualifying run later this year followed by a theatrical release in 2027. Germany has been nominated 10 times in the category since 2000, winning three times during that span with Nowhere in Africa in 2002, The Lives of Others in 2006 and All Quiet on the Western Front in 2022.

Greece has selected Yannis Economides’ latest feature, Broken Vein, as its submission for the International Feature Film race. The film follows  Thomas Alexopoulos, a middle-aged businessman who owes money to the local loan shark and desperately seeks help. He’s running out of time to save his precious home, and he feels suffocated by the pressure of the situation. On the brink of disaster, a simple last-minute plan seems to be the only salvation from his problem.

Sons Of The Neon Night, which debuted as a midnight screening at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, has been selected as Hong Kong’s Oscar entry.

Directed by Juno Mak and produced by Juno Mak and Jacqueline Huen, the film features an ensemble cast including Takeshi Kaneshiro, Sean Lau, Tony Leung Ka-fai, Louis Koo, and Gao Yuanyuan.

The film’s synopsis reads: A massive explosion and shootout in snowy Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, reveals a pharmaceutical heir’s plot. His father’s death in hospital triggers a drug war, destabilizing both legitimate and criminal worlds.

Hungary has submitted Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Friend. The film premiered in Competition at the 2025 Venice Film Festival where it won multiple prizes, including the FIPRESCI Critics Prize and Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best New Talent Award for newcomer Luna Wedler.

The film revolves around a majestic ginkgo tree, located in the heart of a botanical garden in a medieval university town in Germany. Over a century, this “silent witness” has observed the quiet rhythms of transformation across three lifetimes. In 2020, a neuroscientist from Hong Kong, exploring the mind of babies, begins an unexpected experiment with the old tree. In 1972, a young student is profoundly changed by the simple act of observing and connecting with a geranium. And in 1908, the university’s first female student discovers, through the lens of photography, sacred patterns of the universe hidden within the humblest of plants. According to the synopsis, “each individual is slowly transformed by the quiet, enduring, and mysterious power of nature, as the ancient ginkgo tree brings us closer to what it means to be human”.

Tony Leung and Léa Seydoux star in the feature.

Yrsa Roca Fannberg’s documentary The Ground Beneath Our Feet has been selected as Iceland’s submission to the 2027 Academy Awards. The film was selected by a committee from the Icelandic Film and Television Academy, which includes representatives from the main professional associations of the Icelandic film industry, as well as representatives from cinemas, film critics, and the Icelandic Film Centre.

The committee’s statement is as follows:

“The Ground Beneath Our Feet is an exceptionally well-made, personal, and moving piece of cinema that approaches the final stage of human life with love and respect. The documentary focuses on a period of life that is rarely given much space in our narratives, and it does so with sincerity and without pretence.

It is clear that great effort, sensitivity, and understanding underpin the approach of the director, Yrsa Roca Fannberg. The residents of the Grund nursing home allow the viewer to get close to them with candour, resulting in a narrative that is both straightforward and dreamlike.

The rhythm of daily life at Grund nursing home forms a common thread throughout the film, where the stillness and power of each moment conjure a bittersweet beauty. The viewer is given space to dwell in these moments, connect with the characters, and draw their own conclusions. In this way, the intimate and personal also becomes universal.

The cinematography, editing, soundscape, and music work exceptionally well together, forming an indivisible whole where the form deepens the narrative rather than overpowering it. The film spans a wide emotional range, managing to be both beautiful and painful, light and serious all at once.

Above all, The Ground Beneath Our Feet is characterised by love and respect for the people it portrays. An understated yet powerful work about the final steps of life, but no less about life itself.”

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce the 15-film shortlist for the International Feature Film category on December 15, 2026, while nominations in all categories will be revealed on January 21, 2027. The 99th Academy Awards will take place in Los Angeles on March 14, 2027.

The Ground Beneath Our Feet tells the story of a nursing home in Reykjavík where time follows its own laws. The director, Yrsa Roca Fannberg, worked at the Grund nursing home for many years. Over the years, she has formed close bonds with the residents, who are also the subjects of the film. The film is produced by Hanna Björk Valsdóttir for Akkeri Films, with co-producer Małgorzata Staroń at Staron Film in Poland. The film is supported by the Icelandic Film Centre, the Polish Film Institute, Nordisk Film & TV Fund, Eurimages, RÚV, and YLE.

The Ground Beneath Our Feet premiered in Iceland at RIFF – Reykjavík International Film Festival in October 2026. It won the Edda Award for Documentary of the Year. Its international premiere was at CPH:DOX in Copenhagen. It has since travelled to numerous prestigious film festivals around the world over the past year, winning awards, including three awards in Asia: at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, the DMZ International Documentary Film Festival in South Korea, and the Nepal International Film Festival. The film also received a special mention at the Zurich Film Festival in Switzerland.

India has selected Gondhal, a feature directed by Santosh Davakhar, as its entry in the International Film category at the 99th Academy Awards. The film’s synopsis reads: A suffocating young bride, Suman, uses her lover Sarjerao’s obsession with the Gondhal ritual and turns sacred tradition into a deadly chess match. Davakhar won the Best Director award at the International Film Festival of India for the picture. Another Indian film, Angh, directed by Theja Rio, is also eligible for the Oscars category because it won the Toronto Platform prize.

Four Seasons in Java has been selected as Indonesia’s Official Submission for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards.

Produced by Ifa Isfansyah, the film stars Putri Marino as Pertiwi, a woman who returns to her village after years in prison and is forced to confront the people, memories, and violence that shaped her past. Pertiwi’s return is met with rejection from much of the community and even her own family. As she begins to confront the circumstances surrounding her past, she embarks on a deeply personal journey to redefine her understanding of home, family, justice, and peace.

In addition to Putri Marino, the cast is headed by Arya Saloka, Christine Hakim and Hana Malasan, with supporting roles played by Iswadi Pratama, Hargi Sundari, Nagra Kautsar Pakusadewo, Totos Rasiti, Shofia Shireen, Dwika Pradnyana and Hanna Aretha.

Halkawt Mustafa’s Norwegian-Kurdish director drama No Paradise If You Are Killed by a Woman has its world premiere Out of Competition at the Venice Film Festival this month. Avan Jamal stars as Vyan, a Peshmerga sniper who heads to Mosul to rescue her younger sister from ISIS, forcing her to confront the violence she survived and the shadows of the person she has become. Thorbjørn Harr, Kanar Sarchl and Kader Jalal also star. It’s a personal film for the director, who encountered a female Peshmerga sniper during in 2014 as women moved into frontline positions to counter Islamic State attacks. Iraq enjoyed a buzzy 2025-26 awards season thanks to Hasan Hadi’s Cannes Caméra d’Or-winning first film The President’s Cake, which became the country’s first feature to make it to the Oscar shortlist. Read Deadline’s story here, and watch the trailer below:

 

The Irish Film & Television Academy selected the Irish-language thriller Aontas, directed by Damian McCann, for this year’s race. The heist pic, which bowed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, stars Carrie Crowley (from Ireland’s Oscar-nominated The Quiet Girl), Bríd Brennan, Eva-Jane Gaffney, Seán T. Ó Meallaigh, Marcus Lamb and Art Parkinson. It tells the story in reverse chronology about three unlikely thieves led by a woman on the verge of a breakdown who attempt to rob a rural Irish credit union. Ireland scored its first-ever nomination in the category for A Quiet Girl in 2023. The next year, Kneecap made the shortlist.

Moshe Rosenthal’s Tell Me Everything became Israel’s Oscar entry by winning the Best Picture prize the Ophir Awards, where also scooped nine other prizes. Set in 1987 Israel , it follows 12-year-old Boaz (Yair Mazor), who discovers that his father (Assi Cohen), whom he idolizes, is gay, shattering the family while the beginning of the AIDS pandemic looms as the backdrop. The two attempt to reconcile and heal a decade later. Ido Tako, Keren Tzur, Neta Orbach and Mor Demari also star. The country has been submitting films for Oscar consideration since the mid-1960s, 10 of which have earned a nomination in the international/foreign-language category, including three in a row from 2007-09.

Italy out of a 21-film shortlist has selected Paolo Strippoli’s The Spiral (L’Estranea), his fourth feature film, as its 2027 submission following its world premiere in Competition at the 2026 Venice Film Festival. It stars Jasmine Trinca as a woman who arrives at her daughter’s apartment during a storm to confess a lie that will undermine the family’s foundation and their relationship as it comes out in the open. Romana Maggiora Vergano, Adriano Giannini and Valeria Bruni Tedeschi also are in the cast. In a note explaining its decision, the selection committee overseen by Italian cinema guild Anica called The Spiral “a new genre film, by a young director who has recently begun his career and has been appreciated by audiences and national and international critics.” Italy has won 14 Oscars in the category, most recently in 2014 with The Great Beauty by Paolo Sorrentino. It last advanced to the nominations stage in 2013 with Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano.

Ryusuke Hamaguchi, who won the International Feature Film Oscar in 2021 for Drive My Car, returns to the race with All of a Sudden, the Japanese- and French-language drama that won its stars Virginie Efira and Tao Okamoto the Best Actress prizes after its world premiere at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. The story centers on Marie-Lou (Efira), director of a care facility for the elderly, who is determined to introduce an innovative philosophy of care rooted in listening and respect for residents’ dignity, despite resistance from staff. Her path is reshaped by an encounter with Mari (Okamoto), a Japanese theater director battling cancer. Neon is releasing in the U.S. Japan has won four Oscars in the category since winning for the first time in 1951 for Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon. Watch the trailer here:

Zain Duraie’s Sink is Jordan’s official selection for the 2027 Best International Feature Film Oscar race. Clara Khoury (The Voice of Hind Rajab) stars as a mother in denial about her son’s mental health struggles, preferring instead to interpret his emotional withdrawal and disruptive behavior at school as adolescent rebellion. Mohammad Nizar plays the son, with actor-comedian Wissam Tobeileh also in the cast. The pic had its world premiere at TIFF in 2025 and went on to screen in a more than a dozen film festivals including BFI London, Malmo and Red Sea. Jordan has submitted nearly a dozen films for International Feature Oscar consideration since 2008 and earned a nomination Naji Abu Nowar’s Theeb in 2015. Its most recent entry, Cherien Dabis’ All That’s Left of You made the Academy’s shortlist. Read Deadline’s post here, and watch the teaser trailer below:

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The Kazakhstan Oscar Committee has selected Elzat Eskendir’s film Abil as Kazakhstan’s entry for the 99th Academy Awards.

The film’s synopsis reads: In the post-Soviet turmoil of Kazakhstan in 1993, collective farms were being dismantled and properties were on the verge of privatization. Local leaders had long since overstepped their official authority, dividing up resources as they saw fit. Abel, a local farmer, simply wanted his share, but the situation was more complex than he had imagined. Should he play along with the corruption or stand up for what he believed was right?

Dua, Blerta Basholli’s period drama, is set in late 1990s Pristina and centers on 13-year-old Dua (Pinea Matoshi) as she struggles to fit into the expectations of womanhood amid the specter of war and rising rising ethnic tensions in the country. The pic, which world premiered in the Critics’ Week section of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, is one of two Kosovar pics now eligible for Oscar consideration in the category, after Visar Morina’s Shame and Money won a qualifying award earlier in the year at the Sundance Film Festival.

Viesturs Kairišs’ Ulya, a Latvia, Poland, Estonia and Lithuania co-production, is based on the life of famed Latvian and Soviet Olympic basketball gold medalist Uļjana Semjonova, a 7-footer who played in the 1960 and ’70s and ’80s, winning gold for the USSR in 1976 and 1980. Kārlis Arnolds Avot, a male, plays the role in the pic, which focuses on Ulya’s early life as an awkward, fast-growing country farm girl uncomfortable in her own skin before she is discovered by the basketball world. The film, which Avot also co-wrote, had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. The selection comes after Latvia’s animated pic Flow was nominated in the Oscars’ International Feature category in 2024 and won the Animated Feature statue that year. Watch the trailer here:

Andrius Blaževičius wrote and directed How to Divorce During the War, his third feature, which won the best director prize in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The family drama centers on Marija (Žygimantė Elena Jakštaitė), an executive at advertising agency who picks the worst possible time to tell her husband Vytas (Marius Repšys), a film director searching for himself, that she wants a divorce: the day before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Zeitgeist Films and Kino Lorber have North American rights and released the film August 21 in New York, and August 28 in Los Angeles as part of a national rollout. Watch the trailer here:

Cyrus Neshvad’s debut feature Child has been selected as Luxembourg’s entry for the Best International Feature at the 99th Academy Awards.

The film is a psychological horror drama produced by Cynefilms. The film’s official synopsis reads: With their young son running out of time, Anne and Greg are willing to sacrifice everything for one last chance to save him. But after crossing an unforgivable moral line, they find themselves trapped in a nightmare where every choice demands an even greater price.

Following its world premiere at the Raindance Film Festival 2026, the film is currently in cinemas across Luxembourg through the Cinextdoor network.

The Academia Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas selected David Pablos’ On the Road (En el camino), which premiered in the Horizons section of the 2025 Venice Film Festival, as Mexico’s entry. Pablos wrote and directed the drama, about a drifter named Veneno (Victor Prieto Simental) who frequents roadside diners and sleeps with truckers. He hitches a ride with a loner driver named Muñeco (Osvaldo Sanchez) on a long haul. As they travel and an unexpected intimacy builds in this hypermasculine world, ghosts of Veneno’s past await at each stop, putting both their lives at risk. Mexico has made it to the category’s nomination stage nine times, winning the Oscar in 2018 with Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma. Watch the trailer here:

Laila Marrakchi’s Strawberries (La más dulce), her first feature film since 2013’s Rock the Kasbah and her 2005 Cannes debut Marock, has been selected by the Moroccan Cinematographic Center for the 2027 race. Strawberries, which returned Marrakchi to the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes 2026, centers on a pair of young women who leave their native Morocco to work as seasonal laborers picking strawberries in Southern Spain, where they are met with abuse, harassment and poor working conditions. Bonding together, they decide to speak out for their rights, risking everything. Hajar Graigaa, Nisrin Erradi and Fatima Attif star. Morocco has yet to be nominated in the Oscar category, though it made the shortlist three times most recently in 2023 with Asmae El Moudir’s The Mother of All Lies.

Abinash Bikram Shah’s Elephants in the Fog has been selected as Nepal’s entry for the 2027 Oscars. The film debuted in the Un Certain Regard competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, where it became the first Nepali feature film to be selected. The project also won the Un Certain Regard Jury Prize. The film follows Pirati, matriarch of a Kinnar community in a Nepalese village, who dreams of escaping to a normal life. When one of her daughters disappears, she must investigate and choose between love and responsibility.

Paikar by director and screenwriter Dawood Hilmandi has been selected as the Netherlands’ official entry to the 99th Academy Awards in the International Feature Film category.

The Dutch documentary world premiered at IDFA, where it won the Best First Feature Award, FIPRESCI Award and Special Mention Best Dutch Film. At Hot Docs it received the Emerging International Filmmaker Award, and it has been presented at numerous other festivals worldwide including DOKfest Munich and the Guanajuato International Film Festival.

Paikar is produced by Frank Hoeve and Katja Draaijer for BALDR Film (NL) in co-production with EOdocs (NL). Taskovski Films is handling international sales. The film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund, The Netherlands Production Incentive, and NPO-Fund.

In Paikar, Afghan-Dutch filmmaker Hilmandi revisits his authoritarian father, an imam with a violent past, to reconcile their troubled history. Through journeys across Afghanistan, Iran, and Iraq, they explore family, spirituality, and the immigrant experience.

The Dutch Oscar selection committee described the film as an “enticing and personal attempt to understand his father that tells a universal story about fathers and sons, familiar relations, and the way in which war and migration continue to form generations.”

Amongst many, BALDR Film productions include the Oscar-nominated documentary Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, as well as the winner of the Cannes Grand Prix, All We Imagine as Light, and most recently Al Baraneya, which was selected for Venice Giornata.

North Macedonia, which reached the nomination stage twice, most recently with Honeyland in 2019, has submitted Kosara Mitić’s 17 this year. The pic had its world premiere in the Perspectives section of the 2026 Berlin Film Festival. It centers on 17-year-old Sara (Eva Kostić, who won the Best Actress prize for the role at the Sarajevo Film Festival), who, already hiding a secret, witnesses her friend being sexually assaulted during a school trip, bonding them forever.

Hans Petter Moland, whose Out Stealing Horses was Norway’s selection in 2019, is back in the race this year with Growth of the Soil, which world premieres at the 2026 Toronto Film Festival. Based on the 1917 novel that led to the Nobel Prize in literature for author Knut Hamsun, Growth of the Soil follows a farmer named Isak (Herbert Nordrum) testing his limits on a barren land. After he marries Inger (Asta Kamma August), their relationship and family become shaped by their hardships, and time. The submission comes as Norway, a seven-time nominee overall, is the defending International Feature Oscar champ after Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value won at the 98th Academy Awards.

Ahmed Hassouna’s Citizen Osama, which world premieres Out of Competition at the 2026 Venice Film Festival, was chosen by the Palestinian Ministry of Culture to represent Palestine in this year’s race. The documentary feature focuses on the daily life of Osama, an artistic photographer-turned-war documentarian who lives with his family in northern Gaza. A close friend of Hassouna, Osama works to cover the war while also protecting his wife and newborn child. Palestine has made the category shortlist the past two years, with Palestine 36 last year and From Ground Zero in 2024. Hany Abu-Assad previously was nominated twice, for Paradise Now in 2005 and Omar in 2013.

Director Marcelo Martinessi’s period drama Narciso, which won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival, is Paraguay entry for Best International Feature Film at the 2027 Oscars. The pic is set in 1959 Asunción, which is ruled by dictator Alfredo Stroessner’s military regime. Magnetic young DJ Narciso Arévalos (Diro Romero) rises in popularity along with the arrival of imported American rock ‘n’ roll, which he persuads the station’s repressed owner Lulú (Manuel Cuenca) to play in place of traditional Paraguayan folk standards. His broadcasts stir adoring young live audiences craving freedom, but his defiant allure also earns powerful, dangerous attention and stirs envy among the fearful. Then he turns up dead. Paraguay has been submitted film for Oscar consideration since the mid-2010s but has yet to make the shortlist. Watch the trailer here:

The Philippines has selected Rafael Manuel’s feature, Filipiñana, as its submission for the International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards. The film follows Isabel, a 17-year-old from the rural north of the Philippines, works at a posh country club outside Manila. 

The synopsis continues: “Amid stifling heat and pervasive drought, she lines up golf balls for powerful men to drive into the carefully manicured verdant horizon. Between shifts, she wanders the immaculate grounds, sampling its luxuries and exploring its liminal spaces. The club’s members, including an industrialist and his expatriate niece, the president and his pampered wife, and a slew of Chinese tourists, engage in a complex dance with the doting and subservient staff. But something is rotting beneath the pristine fairways of the elite resort, as Isabel discovers when she tries to return a mislaid golf club to its patriarchal director, Dr. Palanca. The deeper she journeys into Alabang’s most exclusive corners, the closer she gets to the violent truths of the club, her native Philippines, and her own past.”

Paweł Pawlikowski, whose Ida won the International Feature Film Oscar in 2014, is back in the race for Poland with Fatherland, which stars Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler and won Pawlikowski a share of the Best Director prize at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. The film centers on the relationship between exiled Nobel-winning author Thomas Mann (Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Hüller) at the height of the Cold War in 1949, when they return to Germany and embark on a road trip across a country in ruins — from the U.S.-dominated Frankfurt to Soviet-controlled Weimar. Mubi has U.S. rights to the pic, a follow-up to Pawlikowski’s Cold War which landed three Oscar nominations in 2018. Poland has been nominated in the category 13 times, and last year submitted Agnieszka Holland’s Kafka biopic Franz.

The Portuguese Film Academy has selected António Ferreira’s The Scent of Things Remembered (aka The Memory of the Smell of Things) to represent the country in the Best International Film category at the 99th Academy Awards. Produced by Persona Non Grata Pictures, the film is described as an intimate drama about Armênio (José Martins), an aging war veteran forced into a retirement home, where he confronts the ghosts of his past and forms an unexpected bond with his Black caregiver (Mina Andala). The film won Martins the Best Actor award at the Shanghai Film Festival in China, and Ferreira nabbed the Best Screenplay award alongside his co-writer Tiago Cravidão at the Tangier Film Festival in Morocco. Portugal has yet to land an Oscar nom in the International Feature category despite entering every year since the early 1980s. Watch the trailer here:

Romania has selected Cristian Mungiu’s 2026 Cannes Palme d’Or winner Fjord as its official Oscar submission, a decision the Centrul Național al Cinematografiei said was unanimous. Under new rules in effect this year, the family drama starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve has officially qualified for the category by means of its Palme d’Or win at Cannes, where it also won the FIPRESCI Prize, the Ecumenical Jury Prize, the Prix de la Citoyenneté and the François Chalais Prize. Reinsve stars as a Norwegian woman who relocates with her devout Romanian husband (Stan) and their five children to a close-knit remote Norwegian coastal town. Their teenage children form a fast bond with a neighboring family as unease begins to simmer around their rigid beliefs. When allegations of abuse emerge, they are forced to confront a system of judgment that blurs the lines between concern and prejudice. Neon releases the film in the U.S. on October 9.

Singapore has selected We Are All Strangers, written and directed by Anthony Chen, as its submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99^th Academy Awards. The selection was made by the Selection Committee, comprising eligible members of the Singapore Film Commission Advisory Committee (SFCAC). The film stars Chen’s frequent collaborators, Yeo Yann Yann and Koh Jia Ler, in the lead roles, with Andi Lim and Regene Lim rounding out the cast. The film was the first Singaporean film ever selected for the Berlin International Film Festival.

Martin Gonda’s Flood (Potopa), his feature debut, is set in 1980s communist Czechoslovakia and is based on real events. It centers on Mara (Sára Chripáková), who dreams of leaving her village for the city where she can study to be a pilot but is forbidden by her father, a widower who wants her to stay and work on the family farm. Generational and political conflict arise when the village faces being wiped out by the construction of the Starina reservoir, which in real life forced the eviction of several rural villages. The pic was selected by the Slovak Film and Television Academy; no Slovakian film has made it to the Oscar shortlist, though the former Czechoslovakia won twice in a span of three years: for The Shop on Main Street in 1965 and Closely Watched Trains in 1967. Watch the trailer here:

Lee Chang-dong’s first film in eight years, Possible Love, which world premieres at the Venice Film Festival, follows two married couples – a laid-off worker and his wife, and a documentary filmmaker and her husband – whose paths cross when the filmmaker sets out to film them, bringing both marriages face to face with their different lives and hidden desires. Jeon Do-yeon, Sul Kyung-gu, Zo In-sung and Cho Yeo-jeong star in the pic, which hails from Netflix and becomes the fourth Lee move selected in the category after 2003’s Oasis, 2008’s Secret Sunshine and 2018’s Burning (the latter the first Korean film to make the shortlist). Bong Joon Ho’s Parasite won both the International Feature and Oscar Best Picture in 2019. Read Deadline’s story here, and watch the trailer below.

Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s breakout Cannes title La Bola Negra has been selected as Spain’s entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards. The film explores LGBT heritage and pays tribute to murdered Spanish poet and playwright Federico García Lorca through the interconnected stories of three men in the three different eras of 1932, 1937 and 2017. The cast features Guitarricadelafuente, Miguel Bernardeau, Carlos González, Milo Quifes, Penélope Cruz, Lola Dueñas and Glenn Close. World premiering in Competition, the picture took Cannes by storm, prompting a 20-minute ovation and then winning Best Director for Calvo and Ambrossi. In the market, it sparked a bidding war for U.S. rights, with Netflix securing the film for the territory in a record-breaking seven-figure domestic deal. Netflix will release the film on October 16, followed by its longest-ever window — 46 days — before the December 2 streaming debut. Spain has scored 22 Oscar nominations over the decades including last year’s Sirāt and won four times, most recent with The Sea Inside in 2024. Read Deadline’s review here, and watch the trailer below:

First-time writer-director Alex Schulman’s Adult Supervision has been selected by the Swedish Film Institute’s Oscar Committee. The dramedy follows three fathers — played by Gustaf Skarsgård, Fares Fares and Linus Wahlgren — who chaperone their teenage daughters on a rowdy school trip to a remote island in the Stockholm archipelago. As tensions mount and old resentments resurface, the boundaries between authority, friendship and violence become increasingly blurred. The pic world premieres at the 2026 Fantastic Festival in Austin in the fall. Last year, Sweden selected Tarik Saleh’s Eagles of the Republic for the Oscar category; it has reached the nominations stage 17 times and won four times (three for Ingmar Bergman pics The Virgin Spring, Through a Glass Darkly and Fanny and Alexander, and most recently one for Bille August’s Pelle the Conqueror in 1987).

Nicolas Wadimoff’s documentary Who Is Still Alive (Qui Vit Encore), which world premiered in the Venice Days section at the 2025 Venice Film Festival, explores the loss off home for nine Palestinian refugees against the backdrop of the Gaza War. The interviews were filmed in South Africa, one of the few countries where Palestinians from the Gaza Strip can enter without a visa. The doc, which won the Best Documentary prize at Hot Docs, marks the third project from Wadimoff that deals with Palestine following 2010’s Still Alive in Gaza and 2018’s The Apollo of Gaza. Watermelon Pictures, distributor of last year’s Oscar-nominated pic The Voice of Hind Rajab, is set to release the film theatrically in the U.S. in the fall. Read Deadline’s story here, and watch the English-dubbed trailer below:

A Foggy Tale, directed by Chen Yu-hsun, won four Golden Horse Awards including Best Narrative Feature and was selected to represent Taiwan among seven finalists for “its vivid characters, fluid storytelling grounded in the perspectives of everyday people, and its ability to showcase Taiwanese culture and universal values,” the Ministry of Culture of Taiwan said. Set in 1954 during the country’s White Terror era of government repression, the film centers on 15-year-old Yue (Caitlin Fang), who travels to Taipei to reclaim the body of her executed brother. She escapes being sold by traffickers with the help of a discharged soldier (Will Or), and they join forces to bring her brother home. Taiwan has had three films nominated in the international film category, all directed by Ang Lee: The Wedding Banquet (1993), Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) and 2000’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the latter of which won the Oscar. Watch the trailer below:

Sompot Chidgasornpongse’s 9 Temples to Heaven world premiered in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. The gently funny pic follows Sakol (Surachai Ningsanond), who hears from a fortune teller that his mother’s time might be short. He packs up Mom, wife, brother, sister and kids for a one-day journey to visit nine Buddhists temples in a single day. As they move through the splendor of Thai temple architecture, the nine-strong family takes part in various rituals, while the matriarch grows increasingly weary, both physically and mentally. Produced by Palme d’Or winner Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives) and others, the seven-country co-production opens in September in Thailand. Read Deadline’s story here.

Tunç Davut’s Like a Limbless Tree centers on retired civil engineer Rafik, who gives his Syrian caregiver money so she can flee to Europe with her two young sons; instead, she leaves the sons with him and disappears. It all happens amid his own family’s issues as they gather for the Eid al-Adha holiday. The pic stars Ali İpin, Feyyaz Duman and Selen Kurtaran. Türkiye has made the International Feature Film shortlist once before, in 2007 for Nuri Bige Ceylan’s Three Monkeys, which also won Ceylan the Best Director prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Watch the trailer here:

Alisa Kovalenko and Marysia Nikitiuk’s documentary Traces has been selected by the Ukrainian Academy Awards Committee for the 2027 race after it won the top docs prize in the Panorama sidebar of the 2026 Berlin Film Festival. The film follows the journey of Iryna Dovhan, a captive-turned-activist who documents testimonies of Ukrainian women who have survived sexual violence and torture in the de-occupied territories of Ukraine during the war with Russia. The committee calls it an “honest and profound documentary about an experience that is extremely difficult to put into words, and about the strength of women who find the courage within themselves not to remain silent.” Ukraine has never reached the nomination stage in the category, but made the shortlist in 2023 with Mstyslav Chernov’s war doc 20 Days in Mariupol; he was nominated again in 2026 for 2000 Meters to Andriivka.

The Uruguayan Academy of Arts and Cinematographic Sciences has submitted writer-director Daniel Hendler’s A Loose End (Un cabo suelto) to represent Uruguay. The film debuted at the 2025 Venice Film Festival in the Spotlight section, and stars Sergio Prina as Santiago, an Argentinian policeman who crosses into Uruguay on the run with no money and no place to live. He begins to rebuild his live with help from the locals, and finds new love. Pilar Gamboa and Alberto Wolf also star. Uruguay has never been nominated in the category; last year, it submitted Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge’s Don’t You Let Me Go.

Jorge Thielen Armand’s Death Has No Master, starring Asia Argento, has been submitted for this year’s race by Venuzuela’s Asociación Nacional Autores Cinematográficos. In the pic, which had its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight sidebar parallel to the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, Argento plays Caro, who travels to Venezuela to sell her late father’s cacao plantation only to find the family mansion occupied by its former staff, who are determined to remain at all costs. It sets off a struggle that unearths the violence buried in the land and its memory. “I’ve been with [Caro] through the darkest parts of my soul, and I thought I had already gone there (before), but the shadows are endlessly deep,” Italian star Argento told Deadline during an interview about the film in Cannes. “I really had to drive myself insane to go there and see things about my life, my heritage, through my family and my childhood; things I had really put away.” Venezuela has never been nominated in the category, making the shortlist once in 2014 for Alberto Arvelo’s The Liberator.

Argentina has submitted Laura Casabe’s The Virgin Of The Quarry Lake, which debuted in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at last year’s Sundance Film Festival.

The film follows a trio of teen girls who each hope to fall in love (and maybe lose their virginity) with the charismatic and handsome Diego (Agustín Sosa). The girls assume their leader, Natalia (Dolores Oliverio), will be the one to end up with him, given their closeness. But Diego quickly becomes absorbed in the older and more mature Silvia (Fernanda Echevarría), to the girls’ wounded pride. As Natalia yearns ever stronger for Diego with the unsuccessful attempts of using folk spells, dressing up, and Y2K online chat rooms, inexplicable forces start to cause concern as disastrous things happen seemingly out of the blue.

The film is based on two horror short stories by Mariana Enríquez, who also recently got the screen adaptation treatment from Pablo Larraín.

Kenya has submitted Vincho Nchogu’s One Woman One Bra.

The film debuted in the Biennale College Cinema section of the 2025 Venice Film Festival before playing the London and Tribeca Film Festivals.

Taking place in the rural village of Sayit, the film follows Star, a 38-year-old unmarried woman with no knowledge of her parentage. The official synopsis continues: “With no kinship ties, she is an outsider in her tight-knit community. When the village begins to distribute the title deeds for property, Star must figure out how to claim her home and land, either by proving a family connection or raising enough funds. This endeavor is punctuated by Star’s discovery of a book about the Maasai in a local shop that shows her own childhood photo on the cover, prompting Star’s search for answers and inciting confrontation and friction within her community.”

The Kenyan selection committee described the film as an “original story and an authentic portrayal of Maasai life.”

Montenegro has selected Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić’s documentary feature To Hold A Mountain.

The film screened at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Documentary World Cinema Grand Jury Prize.

The film’s official synopsis reads: In the remote highlands of Montenegro, a shepherd mother and daughter proudly defend their ancestral mountain from the threat of becoming a NATO military training ground, stirring memories of the violence that shattered their family.

Senegal has submitted Mamadou Khouma Guèye’s documentary feature, The Attachment.

The film’s official synopsis reads: Guinaw Rail, a forgotten neighbourhood on the outskirts of Dakar, is emptying out. Bulldozers are demolishing houses along the route of the ‘Train Express Regional’, the symbol of President Macky Sall’s ‘Emerging Senegal.’ Before it disappears and is transformed entirely, the filmmaker captures his childhood kingdom and his mother, as she recalls a life lived behind the Rails.

The film screened at Visions du Réel 2025.

Peru has selected Paolo Tizón’s documentary Night Has Come.

The film, which debuted at the 2024 Karlovy Vary Film Festival, tells the story of a group of young men who enlist in the Peruvian Air Force. The full synopsis reads: A group of young adventurers sign up for one of the most challenging military training courses in Latin America, which will turn them into fearsome warriors operating in the dangerous VRAEM region, an area with a military presence identified for its heterogeneous armed groups, coca plants, and narcotics trafficking.

The film has also been selected to represent Peru in the Best Ibero-American Film category at Spain’s Goya Awards.

Panama has selected Aarón Bromley and Arturo Montenegro’s period piece Chichero.

The film’s official synopsis reads: In 1980s Peru, the conflict between the guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso and the army forced Josué, a young Quechua with dreams of becoming a boxing champion, to flee his hometown. Separated from his family and forced to join the army, he promises to fight for a better future for them.

Josué eventually moves to Panama, where he struggles to survive by selling chicha and empanadas. There, he meets Gaby, a prostitute, who gives him new hope. But as love brings new challenges, Josué learns that every victory comes with a price, and he must decide what he’s willing to sacrifice to keep his promises.

The film has also been selected to represent the Central American country in the Best Ibero-American Film category at Spain’s Goya Awards.

Paraguay has selected filmmaker Marcelo Martinessi’s latest, Narciso.

The film debuted in the Panorama section at the 2026 Berlin Film Festival, where it won the FIPRESCI Prize for Best Film.

The film stars Diro Romero, Manuel Cuenca, Arturo Fleitas, Margarita Irún, Mona Martínez, and Nahuel Pérez Biscayart. The official synopsis reads: Paraguay, 1958. Under a suffocating military regime, the charismatic and mysterious Narciso returns from Buenos Aires with rock & roll in his veins. He becomes a radio sensation and a symbol of freedom. Desired by both men and women, Narciso captivates and unsettles. After his final show, he is found lifeless. In a country where silence reigns and fear smothers the truth – who killed Narciso?

South Africa’s National Film & Video Foundation has selected Jason Jacobs and Devon Delmar’s Variations On A Theme.

The film follows Ouma Hettie, an elderly goat herder in South Africa’s Kamiesberge. Drawn into a scam offering overdue reparations for her father’s unpaid wartime service, her rituals are unsettled and her independence imperilled.

The film debuted at the 2026 IFFR, where it won the top Tiger Award.

Iran has selected Babak Khajehpasha’s film The Land of Angels.

The film’s official synopsis reads: In the war between Palestine and Israel, this movie focuses on the people and the cruelty of war. The feature premiered at the 44th Fajr International Film Festival, where it won several awards, including Best Film.

The cast features Sulaf Fawakherji, Fatima Al-Masouma Zariq, Ahura Lotfi, and Muhammad Asad.

This is the second time a Khajehpasha film will represent Iran at the Oscars. His directorial debut feature, In the Arms of the Tree, was chosen as the country’s submission for last year’s Academy Awards.

Rwanda has selected Marie-Clémentine Dusabejambo’s post-genocide drama Ben’Imana as its first-ever submission to the Best International Feature Film category of the Academy Awards.

The film’s selection was announced by Alexander, the independent media company of film producer Cameron Lamb, which acquired English-language rights to the film in September as the first acquisition of its new distribution division.

Set in 2012, eighteen years after the genocide against the Tutsi, the film unfolds in a Rwandan village where survivors and perpetrators are grappling with the process of reconciliation. Protagonist Vénéranda has spent years helping survivors and the families of those responsible speak the words that were never said between them. However, forgiveness comes easier when it’s someone else’s story. When her own daughter’s future becomes entangled with the past, Vénéranda is forced to find her own words at last.

The film stars Isabelle Kabano, who won acclaim for her performance in the 2021 feature Small Country: An African Childhood and introduces big-screen debutants Clémentine U. Nyirinkindi and Kesia Kelly Nishimwe.

The UK has selected Pegah Ahangarani’s Rehearsals For A Revolution as its entry to the Best International Feature Film category of the 99th Academy Awards.

The film explores Iranian filmmaker Ahangarani’s experience of exile as she rebuilds her life and creative practice in London, through five portraits of relatives and mentors, which are also expressions of resistance. The UK played an integral role in the film’s journey, serving as the base where it was written.

Drawing from personal archives, home videos, street protest footage, newspapers and recorded voices, Ahangaran retraces more than 40 years of Iran’s history. From the early days of 1979 until the war that began in 2026, she pieces together intimate and collective memories, forming the portrait of a country shaped by political repression and in constant hope for a revolution.

Sony Pictures Classics, which acquired North America, Latin America, Asia (except Japan), New Zealand, Turkey, Portugal, and global airlines out of Cannes, announced the selection of the film as the UK’s entry. The UK won the category in 2024 with Jonathan Glazer’s Zone Of Interest.