Fourteen Latin American countries—four less than last year—are among the 80 participants vying the competition for Best International Feature at the 94th edition of the Academy Awards. This year’s Latin American selection includes five films directed by women, and only one documentary film.
In total, Latin America has won the Academy Award for best international film (formerly known as the best foreign language film) four times: the Argentine films The Official Story by Luis Puenzo in 1986, and The Secret in Their Eyes by Juan José Campanella in 2010; the Chilean film The Fantastic Woman by Sebastián Lelio in 2018; and more recently, Mexico won the Oscar with Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma in 2019.
The 2022 Academy Awards shortlist of 15 titles will be announced on December 21, followed by the final five nominations on February 8. The winners of this year’s Academy Awards will be announced on a telecast on Sunday, March 27.
Meet this year’s Latin American contenders:
ARGENTINA: THE INTRUDER / EL PRÓFUGO
Argentina has selected the psycho-sexual thriller The Intruder / El prófugo, the second feature film by Natalia Meta (Death in Buenos Aires) as its official submission. Starring Érica Rivas (Wild Tales), Nahuel Pérez Biscayart (BPM - Beats Per Minute), Daniel Hendler (The Moneychanger) and Almodóvar regular Cecilia Roth (All About My Mother), The Intruder tells the story of Inés, who works as a dubbing actress and sings in a choir in Buenos Aires. While on an idyllic trip she suffers a traumatic episode that she can't recover from. She has trouble sleeping and experiences very vivid nightmares as strange sounds begin to emerge from inside her. Awake, Inés feels suddenly surrounded by people that seem to come from her dreams.
Hailed as a “smart and stylish supernatural story about making peace with inner demons by learning to confront them head-on” (Eric Kohn, IndieWire), the film had its world premiere in the official competition at the Berlin Film Festival in 2020, and has played at numerous international film festivals including San Sebastian, Vienna, BFI London, and Zurich.
Argentina is the only Latin American country to have won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film (formerly known as Best Foreign-Language Film) twice, in 1986 for The Official Story by Luis Puenzo, and in 2010 for The Secret in Their Eyes by Juan José Campanella.
BOLIVIA: THE GREAT MOVEMENT / EL GRAN MOVIMIENTO
Bolivia has selected The Great Movement / El gran movimiento, the second feature film by director Kiro Russo, which won the Special Orizzonti Jury Prize at the last edition of the Venice Film Festival. Set in contemporary Bolivia, the film follows Elder, who with his miner companions arrive in La Paz after walking for a week to demand for the reinstatement of their job. Yet, Elder starts to feel sick. With the help of the elderly Mamá Pancha, Elder and his friends find work in the market. But Elder’s condition worsens, he’s choking and struggling for breath. Mamá Pancha sends him to Max—a witch doctor, hermit and clown—who may be able to bring the young man back to life.
The Great Movement had its U.S. premiere at the New York Film Festival, and it also played at the San Sebastian Film Festival. This marks the 13th time that Bolivia has submitted a candidate to the Academy Awards, with no nominations yet.
BRAZIL: PRIVATE DESERT / DESERTO PARTICULAR
Brazil’s official selection for the 94th Academy Awards tells the story of 40-year-old Daniel, who has been suspended from active police work and is under internal investigation. When Sara, his internet love affair, goes missing, he decides to drive to her town in Bahia, in the northeast of the country, in search of her. Thousands of miles away from home, Daniel meets a guy who can put the two in touch under very specific conditions.
Starring Antonio Saboia and Pedro Fasanaro, Private Desert, the most recent film by up-and-coming director Aly Muritiba (Rust) and winner of the Audience Award at Venice Days, is a gripping tale of an impossible love set under adverse conditions, as well as an engrossing reflection of masculinity in contemporary Brazilian society.
CHILE: WHITE ON WHITE / BLANCO EN BLANCO
White on White / Blanco en blanco, the second film by Spanish-Chilean director Théo Court is Chile’s official submission for international feature film. The film had its world premiere at last year’s Venice Film Festival, where it was awarded the Silver Lion for Best Director in the Orizzonti competition and the Fipresci Critics Award. Starring Alfredo Castro, White on White is set in 19th centruy Chile and follows a photographer who goes to the southern tip of Chile to capture the wedding of a powerful landowner. His client is absent, and as he waits for the wedding, which keeps getting postponed, he becomes obsessed with the young bride and her beauty.
Chile is one of the three Latin American countries that has won an Oscar for Best International Feature Film, after Sebastián Lelio’s win in 2018 for A Fantastic Woman. The South American country was also nominated in 2013 for Pablo Larraín’s No.
COLOMBIA: MEMORIA
Memoria, directed by Thai Palme d’Or winning director Apichatpong Weerasethakul, is representing Colombia at the 94th edition of the Academy Awards. Boasting an international cast including Tilda Swinton, Elkin Díaz, Jeanne Balibar, Juan Pablo Urrego, Agnes Brekke and Daniel Giménez Cacho, the film had its world premiere in the official competition at the 74th edition of the Cannes Film Festival last July, where it won the Jury Prize.
The film, which will have its U.S. premiere in a few days at the New York Film Festival, was inspired the director’s own memories and those of people he encountered while traveling across Colombia. The bewildering drama follows Jessica, a Scottish botanist (played by Swinton), who, after hearing a loud ‘bang’ at daybreak, begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while traversing the jungles of the South American country.
Colombia has received one nomination in the category for international film at the Oscars, for Ciro Guerra’s Embrace of the Serpent in 2016.
COSTA RICA: CLARA SOLA
Clara Sola, the debut feature by Nathalie Álvarez Mesén, is the Costa Rican contender. The film had its world premiere in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival last July, where it generated critical acclaim. Starring Wendy Chinchilla Araya, Daniel Castañeda Rincón, Ana Julia Porras Espinoza, and Flor María Vargas Chaves, Clara Sola tells the story of Clara, 40, who is believed to have a special connection to God. As a "healer", she sustains a family and a village in need of hope, while she finds solace in her relationship with the natural world. After years of being controlled by her mother’s repressive care, Clara’s sexual desires are stirred by her attraction to her niece’s new boyfriend. This newly awakened force takes Clara to unexplored territory, allowing her to cross boundaries, both physical and mystical. Empowered by her self-discovery, Clara gradually frees herself from her role as “saint” and begins to heal herself.
Distribution company Oscilloscope Laboratories has picked the U.S. rights for the film, and will give it a theatrical run in the next few months. This marks the tenth time that the Central American country has submitted an Oscar candidate, but it has not yet nabbed a nomination.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: HOLY BEASTS / LA FIERA Y LA FIESTA
The Dominican Republic was the last Latin American country to announce its candidate for Best International Film at the 94th edition of the Academy Awards selection Holy Beasts / La fiera y la fiesta by the directorial duo of Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas.
Starring internationally renowned actors Geraldine Chaplin and Udo Kier, the film tells the story of aging punk diva Vera, who arrives in Santo Domingo to direct a musical film. Welcoming her are two other old friends, the producer and the cinematographer, with whom Vera spent the golden years of their youth together as an artistic troupe. The Caribbean production is sumptuous, the musical numbers are grand. But mysterious forces threaten the shoot and death begin to creep up on the haunted production.
Holy Beasts is inspired by the filmography and life of the Dominican filmmaker and artist Jean-Louis Jorge (1947-2000) was a Dominican filmmaker and the author of a sensual and transgressive body of work. This marks the second time that a film made by Guzmán and Cárdenas represents the Dominican Republic at the Oscars after Sand Dollars, also starring Geraldine Chaplin, did it in 2015.
ECUADOR: SUBMERSIBLE / SUMERGIBLE
Ecuador was the first country to announce its contender for the 94th Academy Awards, officially opening the season for best international feature. The South American country through the over 50 members of the Academia de las Artes Audiovisuales y Cinematográficas del Ecuador has selected Submersible / Sumergible, the second feature film by Alfredo León León and starring Colombian actress Natalia Reyes—star of Terminator: Dark Fate and Birds of Passage.
The provocative thriller, which had its U.S. premiere at last year’s AFI Latin American Film Festival, finds a young girl bound and gagged in the cargo hold of a sinking handmade drug-smuggling submarine. The three crew members are forced to open the forbidden cargo cabin to distribute the weight and save the ship. The boat, barely big enough for three to begin with, becomes a steaming powder cake of fears, desires and greed.
This marks the tenth time that Ecuador has selected an Oscar candidate, with no shortlisted or nominated candidates yet. The 94th edition of the Academy Awards will take place March 27, 2022.
MEXICO: PRAYERS FOR THE STOLEN / NOCHE DE FUEGO
The Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences selected Prayers for the Stolen / Noche de fuego, the debut fiction film by filmmaker Tatiana Huezo and produced by Nicolás Célis (Roma) and Jim Stark, as the candidate to represent Mexico in the international competition at the 94th edition of the Academy Awards. Winner of a Special Mention in the Un Certain Regard competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and the Best Latin American Film Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival, the Netflix film is set in a solitary town nestled in the Mexican mountains, where the girls wear boyish haircuts and have hiding places underground.
Liberally adapted from Jennifer Clement's eponymous 2014 novel, the film follows Ana and her two best friends as they take over the houses of those who have fled and dress up as women when no one is watching. In their own impenetrable universe, magic and joy abound; meanwhile, their mothers train them to flee from those who turn them into slaves or ghosts. But one day, one of the girls doesn't make it to her hideout in time.
Prayers for the Stolen beat out Identifying Features, which was the two other favorite contender in the Mexican Oscar race. Mexico has nabbed nine Oscar nominations for Best International Feature, winning its first Academy Award in 2019 with Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma.
PANAMA: PLAZA CATEDRAL
Panama selected Plaza Catedral, the second fiction feature film by Abner Benaim (Ruben Blades Is Not My Name), as the Central American country’s Oscar submission. This marks the third time that a film by Benaim represents Panama at the Oscars after his documentary Invasión became the first Panamanian Oscar submission in 2014, and his other documentary feature Ruben Blades Is Not My Name in 2018.
Starring Mexican actress Ilse Salas (The Good Girls) and Colombian actor Manolo Cardona (Narcos), Plaza Catedral recently had its world premiere at the Guadalajara Film Festival where it won the Best Actress Award. The film tells the story of Alicia, who had "a perfect life” and lost it. Her 6-year-old son died in an accident. Her grief is plagued by guilt, which has made her disassociate from society, from married life, and from herself. She now lives in the Old Quarter of Panama, a rich colonial enclave surrounded by Panama's poorest neighborhoods. There she meets Chief, a street smart 13-year-old who takes care of cars in front of her apartment and insists on getting paid for his job. Alicia keeps a safe distance from him, until one night Chief arrives at Alicia's apartment bleeding from a gunshot wound and begs her to let him inside. How far would you go to help a stranger?
PARAGUAY: NOTHING BUT THE SUN / APENAS EL SOL
The documentary feature Nothing but the Sun / Apenas el sol by director Arami Ullón is representing Paraguay at the Oscars. This marks the fourth time that the South American country selects an Oscar contender, and the second time that a film by Ullón represents the country after Cloudy Times / Tiempo nublado became the first Paraguayan Oscar contender in 2015. Hailed as “powerful and moving” by Screen International, Nothing but the Sun had its world premiere last November as opening night film at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), and it will have its U.S. premiere at DOC NYC in a few days.
The film tells the story of Mateo Sobode Chiqueno who has been recording stories, songs, and testimonies of his Ayoreo people since the seventies, facing the consequences of a violent uprooting. In an attempt to preserve fragments of a disappearing culture, Mateo walks across communities in the arid and desolate Paraguayan Chaco region, and registers on cassettes the experiences of other Ayoreo who, like him, were born in the vast forest, free and nomadic, without any contact with white civilization, until religious missionaries forced them to abandon their ancestral territory, their means of subsistence, their beliefs and their home.
PERU: POWERFUL CHIEF / MANCO CÁPAC
Powerful Chief / Manco Cápac by Henry Vallejo, which had its world premiere at the Lima Film Festival last year, where it won the Best Actor Award, is Peru’s Oscar candidate.
The second feature film by Vallejo starring Jesús Luque Colque, Gaby Huaywa, and Mario Velásquez, tells the story of Elisban, who arrives in the city of Puno, too late to meet his friend Hermogenes, with whom he was going to work. Homeless and without money, he survives from unstable small jobs, in a city that sharpens his loneliness at every step. The inertia of continuing to walk may lead him to a better fate.
URUGUAY: THE BROKEN GLASS THEORY / LA TEORÍA DE LOS VIDRIOS ROTOS
The pitch black comedy The Broken Glass Theory / La teoría de los vidrios rotos, the sophomore feature film by Diego Fernández, is this year’s Uruguayan official submission for the international competition at the Oscars.
Starring Jorge Temponi, Carlos Frasca, Martín Slipak, Guillermo Arengo, and César Tronco, the film tells the story of Claudio, who is the new insurance expert in a small town far from the capital. It seems like a simple job, but when he arrives, he is faced with the worst series of intentional car fires the town had ever seen. Cornered by clients, Claudio must discover what and who is behind the attacks, without being able to trust anything or anyone.
VENEZUELA: THE INNER GLOW / UN DESTELLO AL INTERIOR
The Venezuelan drama The Inner Glow / Un destello al interior by the siblings Andrés and Luis Rodriguez, is the South American country’s Oscar selection. Starring Jericó Montilla, The Inner Glow tells the story of Silvia, a single mother who works as a janitor cleaning offices and has diagnosed with a brain tumor, but her biggest concern is the future of her six-year-old daughter Sara. The Venezuelan film had its international premiere at the 43rd edition of the Moscow Film Festival last April.
Venezuela has been submitting candidates to the Academy Awards since 1978, but has yet to nab a nomination. The closest the South American country has gotten was in 2014 with Alberto Arvelo’s Libertador, which made the short list.
