Canada announced Zaynê Akyol‘s Rokej, Germany announced Ilker Çatak‘s The Teachers Lounge (a future SPC release) and Chile ended up selecting a film that we deem to be among the dozen-plus pack of frontrunners Best International Feature hopefuls at the 2024 Academy Awards. Winner of the FIPRESCI Prize (see ceremony vid below) and the Cannes Film Festival – the Un Certain Regard selected The Settlers by Felipe Gálvez won the spot over Maite Alberdi’s The Eternal Memory and Pablo Larraín’s El Conde. This is a Mubi release that will be headed to Toronto International Film Festival (as part of TIFF’s Centrepiece program), San Sebastián and the New York Film Festival (NYFF) with Telluride as a strong possibility. In Nicholas Bell’s review he mentions that:
“Gálvez’s reckoning with Chile at the turn of the 20th century presents itself as more of a Neo-western rather than a revisionist one, focusing on a trio of henchmen who are equally a danger to each other as the landscape they’re tasked with conquering. Like Sergio Leone’s epic spaghetti westerns serving as the constellation guiding us through the fabled mythos of the American Old West, Gálvez focuses on the flimsy bureaucracies and unchecked violence which crafted the foundations for future generations in an odyssey as troubling as it is brutal.“
We’ll update the chart the massive chart (and missing countries) as the weeks go by.
Algeria
Argentina
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Bulgaria
Cambodia
Canada: Rokej – Zaynê Akyol
Chile: The Settlers – Felipe Gálvez
China
Colombia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia: Smoke Sauna Sisterhood – Anna Hints
Finland
France
Georgia
Germany: The Teachers Lounge – Ilker Çatak
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Latvia
Lebanon
Luxembourg
Mexico
Morocco
Netherlands
New Zealand
North Macedonia
Norway
Pakistan
Palestine
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Serbia
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
South Korea: Concrete Utopia – Um Tae-hwa
Spain:
Sweden
Switzerland: Foudre – Carmen Jaquier
Taiwan
Tajikistan: Melody – Behrouz Sebt Rasoul
Thailand
Tunisia
Turkey
Ukraine
United Kingdom
Uruguay: Family Album (Temas propios) – Guillermo Rocamora
Venezuela
Vietnam
Eric Lavallée is the founder, CEO, editor-in-chief, film journalist and critic at IONCINEMA.com (founded in 2000). Eric is a regular at Sundance, Cannes and TIFF. He has a BFA in Film Studies at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema. In 2013 he served as a Narrative Competition Jury Member at the SXSW Film Festival. He was an associate producer on Mark Jackson's This Teacher (2018 LA Film Festival, 2018 BFI London). In 2022 he served as a New Flesh Comp for Best First Feature at the 2022 Fantasia Intl. Film Festival. Current top films for 2022 include Tár (Todd Field), All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen), Aftersun (Charlotte Wells).
