Oscars Foreign Language Contenders to watch at 19th Mumbai Film Festival

He Cinephiles always wanted to see Foreign Language films that get nominated for Oscars, well here is your chance to watch some of these movies you can watch at this years 19th Mumbai Film Festival

The frontrunners include Sweden selected Ruben Östlund’s hilarious Palme d’Or-winner “The Square” (October 27, Magnolia Pictures), an art-world satire shot in majority Swedish with some English from stars Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss, and Dominic West, thus giving Östlund another shot after “Force Majeure” was a surprise 2015 Oscar omission.

THE SQUARE (Sweden)

DIRECTOR: RUBEN ÖSTLUND

Christian is a curator working on an art project for a museum about altruism that’s titled, The Square.

It’s supposed to remind people of their responsibility towards fellow humans. While the museum’s PR figures out how to ‘sell’ his project, Christian finds himself getting dragged into strange and troubling situations. There’s a stolen phone, a one-night stand, mistaken accusations, and a whole load of chaos, which together offer a satirical portrait of the art world and white privilege. 

Zama (Argentina)

DIRECTOR: LUCRECIA MARTEL

Adapted from a novel by Antonio Di Benedetto that was set in a 18th-century Spanish colony perched on the Asuncion coast, the film doesn’t specify any time. We land up to meet Zama, an officer of the Spanish Crown born in South America, who is waiting for the letter of transfer from this town in which he can feel himself stagnating. It’s a delicate situation — he desperately wants to leave and to do so, he must ensure nothing overshadows his transfer

SPOOR (Poland)

DIRECTOR: AGNIESZKA HOLLAND

In a small village on the Czech-Polish border, there lives an eccentric old woman named Janina Duszejko with her dogs. She’s a retired engineer, a vegetarian, an amateur astrologist and outraged by the casual way everyone ignores the cruelty underlying the hunting of animals. One day, Duszejko’s dogs disappear and there begins a murder mystery that has the town confused. Who is behind the grisly killings? And why does every crime scene have animal tracks? 

SUMMER 1993 (Spain)

DIRECTOR: CARLA SIMÓN

In the summer of 1993, following the death of her parents, six-year-old Frida goes to live with her aunt and uncle in the Catalan province. Leaving Barcelona for the country and adjusting to her relatives pose challenges for Frida. Just as she struggles to adjust and deal with her grief, she’s a handful for her new family too. Before the season ends, Frida must cope with her emotions while her aunt and uncle will have to learn to love this little girl like she is their own daughter. 

THE WOUND (South Africa)

DIRECTOR: JOHN TRENGOVE 

In the Xhosa tribe, the cloistered ritual of ukwaluka initiates teenaged boys into the world of black masculinity. Xolani is a factory worker who goes up to the mountains every year, to be the caregiver to the initiates of ukwaluka (one of the rituals is circumcision). The real reason Xolani makes the trip, however, is that it offers him a chance to meet his secret, much-married, gay lover, Vija. When his relationship is discovered by one initiate, Xolani’s life unravels.

A FANTASTIC WOMAN (Chile)

DIRECTOR: SEBASTIÁN LELIO

Marina is a young waitress and aspiring singer in love with Orlando, a man 20 years older than her. One evening, Orlando falls seriously ill and passes away just after Marina rushes him to the emergency room. Instead of being able to mourn her lover, she is treated with suspicion and hostility by doctors, detectives, and even Orlando’s family. A trans woman who has spent a lifetime battling forces just to become the woman she now, Marina finds herself struggling for once again for the right to be herself – a complex, forthright and fantastic woman.

FÉLICITÉ (Senegal)

DIRECTOR: ALAIN GOMIS 

Félicité is a proud, free-willed woman working as a singer in a bar in Kinshasa. Her life is thrown into turmoil when her teenaged son has an accident that leaves the 14-year-old bedridden in a municipal hospital. His broken leg requires treatment that Félicité can’t afford, so she sets out on a breakneck race through an electric world of music and dreams. Then her paths cross with Tabu, a regular at the bar where Félicité sings, and there appears the hope of a new harmony.

Scary Mother (Georgia)

DIRECTOR: ANA URUSHADZE

Fifty-year-old Manana is a housewife with a secret: she’s written a graphic novel that’s made up of ingenious text and imagery that’s almost pornographic. Manana’s husband makes supportive noises about her literary ambitions, but regards her condescendingly. Her creative self is buried under domesticity. Finally, Manana snaps under the pressure of trying to play the good wife and as she pursues her literary passions, she finds herself identifying more and more with her heroine, a mythic

female vampire. Patriarchy, beware.