Fifteen Latin American countries—one more than last year—are among the 92 contenders vying for Best International Feature at the 95th edition of the Academy Awards. This year’s Latin American selection includes three films directed by women, and two documentary films.
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 2023 Academy Awards shortlist of 15 titles will be announced on December 21, followed by the final five nominations on January 24. The winners of this year’s Academy Awards will be announced on a telecast on Sunday, March 12.
Meet this year’s Latin American contenders:
ARGENTINA: ARGENTINA, 1985
Starring Ricardo Darín and Peter Lanzani, Argentina, 1985 is inspired by the true story of Julio Strassera, Luis Moreno Ocampo and their young legal team of unlikely heroes in their David-vs-Goliath battle in which, under constant threat, they dared to prosecute Argentina’s bloodiest military dictatorship against all odds and in a race against time to bring justice to the victims of the Military Junta. Directed by Santiago Mitre, the historic political drama had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, and is currently playing in theaters across the U.S.
Argentina is the only Latin American country to have won twice the Oscar for Best International Feature (previously known as Best Foreign-Language Film): in 1985 with Luis Puenzo’s The Official Story / La historia oficial and in 2009 with Juan José Campanella’s The Secret in Their Eyes / El secreto de sus ojos. In total, the South American country has nabbed seven nominations, more recently for Damian Szafrón’s Wild Tales / Relatos salvajes in 2014.
BOLIVIA: UTAMA
Set in the arid Bolivian highlands, Utama—the debut feature by Bolivian photographer turned filmmaker Alejandro Loayza Grisi—tells the story of an elderly Quechua couple that has been living a tranquil life for years. While he takes their small herd of llamas out to graze, she keeps house and walks for miles with the other local women to fetch precious water. When an uncommonly long drought threatens everything they know, Virginio and Sisa must decide whether to stay and maintain their traditional way of life or admit defeat and move in with family members in the city.
Their dilemma is precipitated by the arrival of their grandson Clever, who comes to visit with news. The three of them must face, each in their own way, the effects of a changing environment, the importance of tradition, and the meaning of life itself. The Bolivian film made its World Premiere in the 2022 Sundance Film Festival World Cinema Competition, where it won the Grand Jury Prize in World Cinema Dramatic Competition.
BRAZIL: MARS ONE / MARTE UM
Gabriel Martins’ Mars One follows the Martins family, who are optimistic dreamers, quietly leading their lives in the margins of a major Brazilian city following the disappointing inauguration of a far-right extremist president. A lower-middle-class Black family, they feel the strain of their new reality as the political dust settles. Tércia, the mother, reinterprets her world after an unexpected encounter leaves her wondering if she’s cursed. Her husband, Wellington, puts all of his hopes into the soccer career of their son, Deivinho, who reluctantly follows his father’s ambitions despite secretly aspiring to study astrophysics and colonize Mars. Meanwhile, their older daughter, Eunice, falls in love with a free-spirited young woman and ponders whether it’s time to leave home.
Brazil has submitted candidates for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film since 1960. The South American country has been nominated four times, the most recent was in 1998 for Walter Salles’ Central Station; and in 2007, Cao Hamburger’s The Year My Parents Went On Vacation made the shortlist.
CHILE: BLANQUITA
The Academy of Cinematographic Arts of Chile selected Blanquita, the fourth feature film by director Fernando Guzzoni as its Oscar contender. The film tells the story of an 18-year-old foster home resident who is the key witness in a scandal involving kids, politicians and rich men taking part in sex parties. Yet, the more questions are asked, the less clear it becomes what Blanca’s role in the scandal exactly is.
Along with Argentina and Mexico, Chile is one of the three Latin American countries that have won theOscar for Best International Feature. The country won the statuette in 2017 for A Fantastic Woman by Sebastián Lelio, after earning its first nomination in 2012 for No by Pablo Larraín.
COLOMBIA: THE KINGS OF THE WORLD / LOS REYES DEL MUNDO
Produced by Cristina Gallego (Birds of Passage, The Embrace of the Serpent), Laura Mora’s The Kings of the World / Los reyes del mundo follows five Medellín teenagers from the streets on a desperate journey of survival as it portrays with strong poetic undertones the reality of the injustice and exclusion suffered by those who lack basic rights such as a name, a family, a place and a date of birth. Rá, Culebro, Sere, Winny and Nano, five street kids from Medellin, five kings without a kingdom, with no law and no family, are looking for the promised land. The five will embark on a trip to claim a piece of land that Rá inherited after a long process of land restitution.
Colombia has nabbed only one nomination since it started submitting films to the Oscars, that was in 2015 for The Embrace of the Serpent by Ciro Guerra.
COSTA RICA: DOMINGO AND THE MIST
Costa Rica has selected Domingo and the Mist / Domingo y la niebla by director Ariel Escalante Meza as its contender for Best International Feature Film at the 95th edition of the Academy Awards. The second feature film by director Ariel Escalante Meza had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard competition at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
The supernatural drama tells the story of Domingo, a 65-year-old man who lives in a town that is being threatened by thugs hired by a developer to expel its inhabitants and pave the way for the construction of a mega highway. But his land hides a secret—the ghost of his deceased wife who visits him within the mist. Domingo is sure he will never give up his land, even if that means resorting to violence.
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: BANTÚ MAMA
Iván Herrera’s Bantú Mama, which is a contemporary story about the proverbial encounter between Africa and the Caribbean, had its world premiere at the 2021 edition of SXSW, becoming the first Dominican film to be selected for the Texas film festival.
Starring Clarisse Albrecht, the film follows a French woman of Cameroonian descent who manages to escape after being arrested in the Dominican Republic. She finds shelter in the most dangerous district of Santo Domingo, where she is taken in by a group of children. By becoming their protégée and maternal figure, she will see her destiny change inexorably.
ECUADOR: LO INVISIBLE
Javier Andrade’s drama Lo Invisible stars Anahí Hoeneisen, Gerson Guerra, and Juan Lorenzo Barragán and had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last year. The film tells the story of Luisa, 45, who returns from a psychiatric clinic after a bout with severe postpartum depression. She enters a new confinement in her dazzling home, surrounded by family members and a brigade of domestic workers who expect her struggles to remain invisible. Unable to continue playing the role of the perfect housewife, Luisa's only escape is to waltz elegantly into madness.
Lo Invisible becomes the eleventh Ecuadorean Oscar candidate since the South American country first submitted a contender in 2000. Andrade’s debut feature Porcelain Horse / Mejor no hablar de ciertas cosas was Ecuador’s Academy Award submission in 2013.
GUATEMALA: THE SILENCE OF THE MOLE / EL SILENCIO DEL TOPO
The Silence of the Mole, the debut documentary film by Anaïs Taracena will represent Guatemala in the Best International Feature at the 95th Academy Awards. The film had its world premiere at the Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival last year in Toronto, Canada, and has since then played at numerous international film festivals, including Sheffield, Guadalajara, Malaga, DOC NYC, and Jeonju, where it won a Special Jury Prize.
The documentary film tells the story of journalist Elías Barahona, who succeeded in infiltrating the most repressive government in Guatemala, that of General Romeo García. Dubbing himself 'the mole', he lived life undercover, courageously passing information to the resistance.
MEXICO: BARDO, FALSE CHRONICLE OF A HANDFUL OF TRUTHS / BARDO, FALSA CRÓNICA DE UNAS CUANTAS VERDADES
A Netflix release, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and starring Daniel Giménez Cacho (Zama), Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths is a nostalgic comedy set against an epic personal journey. It chronicles the story of a renowned Mexican journalist and documentary filmmaker who returns home and works through an existential crisis as he grapples with his identity, familial relationships, the folly of his memories as well as the past of his country. He seeks answers in his past to reconcile who he is in the present. The film recently had its world premiere in the Golden Lion competition at the Venice Film Festival, followed by its North American premiere at the Telluride Film Festival.
González Iñárritu is no stranger to the Oscars, having won the statuettes for Best Director back to back in 2015 and 2016 for Birdman and The Revenant. This marks the third time that the filmmaker represents the country in the international competition after Amores perros in 2000, and Biutiful in 2010. After nine nominations, Mexico finally won the coveted award for Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma in 2018.
PANAMA: BIRTHDAY BOY / CUMPLEAÑERO
Starring Gaby Gnazzo, Albi De Abreu, and Joavany Alvarez, Arturo Montenegro’s Birthday Boy tells the story of Jimmy, who is celebrating his 45th birthday at the beach house and inviting his close circle of friends over for a weekend full of fun, excess and compromise. Nevertheless, everything is interrupted by Jimmy's confession of wanting to end his life before the party ends.
This is the seventh Panamanian Oscar candidate since the country first submitted a film in 2014. Last year Abner Benaím’s Plaza Catedral made it to the Academy Award’s shortlist.
PARAGUAY: EAMI
Eami, the third feature film by Paz Encina, will represent Paraguay in the competition for Best International Feature Film at the 95th Academy Awards, the country announced on Tuesday. The film had its world premiere at the Rotterdam Film Festival in January, where it won the Tiger Award for Best Film.
Encina has made a dreamy, magic-realist film about a five-year-old girl called Eami, following the filmmaker’s immersion in indigenous mythologies of the Paraguayan Chaco. After the girl’s village is destroyed and her community disintegrates, Eami wanders the rainforest. She will have to live outside the rainforest, just like the coñone (literally: ‘the insensitive’). Embodying Asojá, the bird-god-woman, Eami falls into trance in which she walks slowly and stunned through her beloved forest as she prepares to leave it forever. Encina turns her final wander into an experience for all the senses, with enchanting images and a powerful sound mix.
PERU: MOON HEART / EL CORAZÓN DE LA LUNA
Peru has selected the sci-fi Moon Heart by Aldo Salvini, which tells the story of M—played by veteran actress Haydeé Cáceres—a lonely woman who lives adrift: a lonely shadow that crosses her own geography every day. She spends her days dreaming about her past, until one day she finds something very similar to her: an ant. And what does a person do when they find an ant? You crush it with your finger, you blow it away. Instead, M decides to share her world with it. A world made of nostalgic memories and a dark presence that haunts her, until the day a "mechanical angel" arrives to help her.
Peru is looking for a second nomination for Best International Feature after Claudia Llosa’s The Milk of Sorrow / La teta asustada nabbed a nomination in 2009.
URUGUAY: THE EMPLOYER AND THE EMPLOYEE / EL EMPLEADO Y EL EMPLEADOR
Uruguay has picked The Employer and the Employee, the third film by writer-director Manolo Nieto (The Dog Pound, The Militant), which had its world premiere at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2021.
In this slow-burn drama set in the Uruguayan countryside, close to the Brazilian border, Nieto continues his insightful and provocative examination of class conflict. Acclaimed Argentine actor Nahuel Pérez Biscayart [BPM (Beats Per Minute)] stars as Rodrigo, a young landowner whose most pressing concern is his baby’s health. He hires Carlos, an inexperienced teenager looking for a job to support his own newborn. Despite a growing connection between them, an unexpected event will strain their bond and put their families in danger.
VENEZUELA: THE BOX / LA CAJA
The Box, the second fiction feature by director Vigas—whose From Afar / Desde lejos was the first Latin American film to win the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival—is set in Mexico and tells the story of Hatzín, a teenager from Mexico City who travels to the north of the country to collect the remains of his estranged father, who died under unknown circumstances. Yet an encounter with a man who shares a physical resemblance with his father fills him with doubts and hope about his dad’s true whereabouts. Vigas builds a complex psychological thriller around paternity while offering a critical look at Mexico’s maquiladora system.
The Box had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last year. This is the second time that Vigas represents Venezuela at the Oscars after his debut feature From Afar in 2016. The South American has never received an Oscar nomination. The film The Liberator / El libertador by Alberto Arvelo was shortlisted in 2014.
