Oscars 2024: Best International Feature (Survey by Country)
Contenders for the shortlist of 15 international features:
Frontrunners
Argentina:
“The Delinquents,” by Rodrigo Moreno
Premiere: Cannes Film Fest 2023, Un Certain Regard
Argentine director Moreno’s three-hour heist saga starts off as a crime story about two bank employees trying to free themselves from the daily grind.
But then it digresses and deepens, creating all kinds of new mysteries and affairs.
This intimate epic demands patience due to its meandering rhythms and puzzle-like structure.
About Rodrigo Moreno
Born in October 1972 in Buenos Aires, Rodrigo Moreno is one of the members of the so-called “New Argentine Cinema,” which began circa 1998.
Moreno studied cinema and graduated from the directing program at the Universidad del Cine, Buenos Aires, where he has been teaching directing and screenplay writing since 1996.
His films have been critically hailed at various film festivals.
In 1993, he wrote and directed his first short, Nosotros, which won best film at the Bilbao Festival of Documentary and Short Films.
The first feature he directed solo was The Minder (Spanish: El Custodio).
His 2011 film A Mysterious World premiered in competition at the 61st Berlin Film Fest.
Argentina at the Oscars
As of 2023, 8 Argentine films have been nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
Two of these, Luis Puenzo’s The Official Story and Juan José Campanella’s The Secret in Their Eyes, won the award.
Nine Argentine directors have had multiple films submitted to the Academy for review.
Marcelo Piñeyro and Pablo Trapero have been selected three times, but only Juan José Campanella had multiple Oscar nominations.
Since The Official Story earned the award at the 1986 Oscars, Argentina has always submitted a film to the competition.
Among all the countries that received the Best Foreign Language Film, Argentina (with two awards) is one of four Spanish-speaking countries that have done so, the others being Chile (one award), Mexico (one award), and Spain (four awards).
The Argentina nominee is selected annually by the Academia de las Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas de la Argentina. The selection committee holds separate votes about which film goes to the Oscars and which film goes to the Spanish Goya Awards.
