The Milk of Sorrow, Gigante, White Ribbon among the Sure Bets for the 2010 Foreign Film Category

Former UCLA graduate Kisztina Goda's audience favorite Chameleon becomes Hungary's 2010 entry for the Academy Awards' foreign-language film category and in the same measure, becomes the first film to be added to the annual derby that usually sees sixty plus countries compete for five nomination slots. Since we're on the topic, I thought we'd look at some of the almost guaranteed and highly probable submissions from some of the others countries.

North of the Oscar land, Canada should be represented by Denis Villeneuve's gripping drama Polytechnique, while Latin America has some pretty solid contenders in Chile Sebastian Silva's The Maid (a multiple film festival award). Chile's neighbour to the North (Peru) has got a Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear winner in Claudia Llosa's The Milk of Sorrow (her first film Madeinusa got a nom couple of years back) and its neighbour to the East (Argentina) has a triple Berlin winner in Adrián Biniez's debut drama Gigante which won for Best Debut Film, Alfred Bauer Award and 2nd place - Silver Berlin Bear.

Skipping into Asia, depending who we find in government later down the road, Iran could give a vote of confidence and to democracy by backing Cannes winner and recently released from prisoned Bahman Ghobadi and his No One Knows About Persian Cats. South Korea might back Bong Joon-Ho's latest which doesn't contain any monsters but a strong female perf in Mother. Raya Martin's Independencia should represent The Philippines.

From the Middle East, votes should go to Elia Suleiman's The Time That Remains (Palestine) and Cannes winner Keren Yedaya's Jaffa is likely to rep Israel. Finally, Europe's big four are always hard to predict this early on.. but out of Spain, Italy, Germany and France I'd say that Jacques Audiard's A Prophet like last year's The Class should stretch its Cannes buzz all the way up to nomination time. Nations that I think are already locked include Poland who should see Andrzej Wajda once again this time with and Tatarak (Sweet Rush), I'd really like to see Greek helmer Yorgos Lanthimos bring the screwed up Dogtooth (if Chile brought Tony Manero last year then this has a shot). The most obvious of pegged films should come from Austria – they can boast a Palme d'or selection in Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon. There are tons of other countries (listed below) and I would like to hear your thoughts. Drop us a word if you know of another sure bets. 

Taken from the long list for 2008.
Argentina:
Australia:
Austria:
Azerbaijan:
Bangladesh: 
Belgium:
Bosnia and Herzegovina:
Brazil:
Bulgaria:
Canada:
Chile:
China:
Colombia:
Croatia:
Cuba:
Czech Republic:
Denmark:
Egypt:
Estonia:
Finland:
France:
Georgia:
Germany:
Greece:
Hong Kong:
Hungary:
Iceland:
India:
Indonesia:
Iran:
Iraq:
Ireland:
Israel:
Italy:
Japan:
Kazakhstan:
Korea:
Lebanon:
Luxembourg:
Macedonia:
Mexico:
The Netherlands:
Norway:
Peru:
Philippines:
Poland:
Portugal:
Puerto Rico:
Romania:
Russia:
Serbia:
Singapore:
Slovakia:
Slovenia:
Spain:
Sweden:
Switzerland:
Taiwan :
Thailand:
Turkey:
Uruguay:
Venezuela:
Vietnam:

QUICK LINKS

A Prophet,  The Time That Remains,  The White Ribbon,  Polytechnique,  Mother,  The Maid,  No One Knows About Persian Cats,  Dogtooth,  Independencia,  Jaffa,  Gigante,