Best International Films Tackle Gender, Sexuality, Bullying, and Other Relevant Issues
Germany’s entry, I’m Your Man, strays into science fiction. Maria Schrader’s philosophical romantic comedy begins as a battle of wills between Alma (Maren Eggert), an independent, career-oriented academic, and Tom (Dan Stevens), the android boyfriend tailored for her needs in a lab, though it seems he has a mind of his own.
“In our romantic comedy, the obscure object of desire is not a woman but a man, which has to do with the fact that he actually is an object in the true sense of the word–a robot,” Schrader says. “Every good comedy evades audience expectations, and as gender politics is such a controversial field of expectations, it is a tremendously joyful playground for laughs.”
Schrader is one of four women filmmakers on the shortlist, all of whose films taking a female character’s perspective in a world pitted against them.