Angry retrospect: Will Russia’s invasion of Ukraine set the agenda for this year’s international Oscar race?

Strange as it may seem, the Oscar for Best International Film goes to films that are universal rather than geographically specific. Last year’s winner drive my car talked more about humanity’s default setting for loneliness than the idiosyncrasies of relationship dynamics in modern Japan, just like the Danish drunks in 2021 other round is hammered in a way that is recognizable to drunks in every country from Albania to Zambia. Perhaps the academy thinks real life is better left to the documentaries than a 2015 win for the gripping World War II drama son of Saul indicates that the door is always open. And after a year in which the entire world was rocked by Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, this may be one of those years when that fact is addressed.

Clearly, the abrupt nature of Putin’s surprise move on February 24 caught many by surprise, especially in an industry that can be slow to react. However, Maryna Er Gorbach started her film Klondike – Ukraine’s official participation in the Oscars – almost two years ago. “We shot this film non-stop in 2020,” she said at a press conference in Sarajevo, “and felt like we were already six years late [Russian] profession [after the annexation of Crimea].”

It takes place on July 17, 2014, the day unknown forces reportedly used a Russian missile to shoot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. Klondike tells the story of a pregnant peasant woman who becomes involved in the Russian attack on the Donbass. “I remember the day well,” said Er Gorbach, “because it was a major civil and international air disaster. It was not a Ukrainian or Russian plane, it was not a military plane. It was a totally shocking event. And we thought, ‘This event will not be ignored by the world, by international politicians, by journalists, whatever. It’s going to trigger a big conversation about what’s happening in Ukraine.” But in 2016 I realized this was not the case.”

Of Klondike, Er Gorbach wants to remind people of the human cost of war: not only the loss of life, but also the loss of homes and livelihoods in the displacement that followed. “Often when people are in war zones, after a few months or years they feel like they’ve been forgotten,” she said, “that no one shares their pain and that no one understands what’s really going on with them…I know.” that it is difficult for many Ukrainians to watch [my] film, but I also want these people to know that I feel the same pain, and I try to share that feeling with viewers so that they are not alone in their feelings. [With this film] I want the viewer to experience the power of the female instinct to survive, resist and fight for the future.”

Russia will not compete this year, of course, having turned down the Oscars in a pre-emptive strike. However, some countries are only too happy to offer my mistake about embarrassing episodes from the past. New Zealand supports Tearepa Kahis muru (a Maori word with many meanings including “to forgive”). Set in the otherwise peaceful Ruatoki Valley in the Tühoe region of New Zealand, Kahi’s film focuses on a series of police raids in 2007 in which authorities targeted an indigenous community in the hope of fending off Maori activists in the area they misrepresented as domestic terrorists.

The film’s star, Cliff Curtis, admits that this is a small shadow for such a progressive nation. “But the wonderful thing about our country is that with the support of our government we tell a story about it,” he says. “You know, other governments may not be so willing to engage in this kind of verification of our identities. And that’s why it’s important and healthy to be able to explore things we’re not comfortable with.

Argentina is another country ready to heal the wounds of the past. In fact, he has an earlier form ahead of him, winning the Oscar in 2009 with Juan José Campanella’s noir thriller The secret in her eyes, is set in the years before the dictatorship, when right-wing extremist death squads ran riot. This year, the region is behind Santiago Mitre Argentina, 1985, an account of the trial that led to the imprisonment of those responsible for the torture and murder of thousands.

The years ’75-’83 have been covered a lot and these dark times cast a long shadow. Says the star of Argentina, 1985Ricardo Darin: “There was a wave of Argentine screenwriters who felt compelled to refer to it after going through such a difficult time and such a terrible dictatorship. that emerged from that time.”

Now, he says, there is a new generation that does not feel so committed to the past: “That’s why you get the same subject, the same story, treated cinematically and presented in a completely different context. Road.” And is also why Argentina, 1985 could get the attention of the Academy: Although the film takes the junta’s misdeeds extremely seriously, it is often very funny, especially in its portrayal of Darin’s character, the witty, irreverent lawyer Julio Strassera.

“I think it’s a really smart scripting strategy,” says Darin, “because it lowers our defenses for the second half of the film, which might otherwise come off as too heavy or almost too brutal or too difficult for audiences. For me, one of the very strong aspects of the film that the heavy themes we explore never overwhelm the audience.

However, war stories are relatively rare this year. One that could catch voters’ attention, however, is Jordan’s contender farha, about a young girl caught in the controversial aftermath of the 1947 UN plan to partition Palestine (also known as the Nakba, or “catastrophe”). “When you see a film about Palestine, you always think you’re watching a political film,” says director Darin J. Sallam. “But this must always be a human story first, about a child forced to grow up and become a woman. She didn’t choose it.”

Producer Deema Azar explains a bit more. “The movie is called,Farha“And in Arabic it means joy,” she explains. “It is related to the joy that was stolen from the Palestinian people in 1948 and it was important for us to show that there is light in Palestine, that it is a land of people who had lives, dreams and aspirations. In almost every household in Jordan you hear a story about Palestine in 1948, what happened to this particular family and how they ended up in Jordan as a result.”

To date, however, no conflict has caused such global upheaval as World War I, which was the subject of Edward Berger’s Netflix hit No news from the western front, an adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s memoir/novel from 1929. To many, the 1930 American version is unmistakable, so why a reprint? “For me,” he says, “the main reason to go back to the German novel and make a German film out of it was to bring what we have, the things that are German into this film – things that are not English -American isn’t. Filmmakers can theoretically do that because they don’t have that legacy.”

England, he explains, was attacked during the war and defended itself by it, and then America went along with it and rid Europe of fascism. “It makes me proud,” he says. “It’s about honor. There is something to remember. But there is no such thing in Germany. There is only shame and guilt and terror and responsibility for what happened. And that makes a very different film in my opinion.”