The Unknown Articles

Oscar 2008: Best Foreign Language Film Semi-Finalists The semi-finalist films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are: Austria, The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky, director Nazis have a Jewish prisoner create fake American and British currency in order to weaken their enemies’ economies Brazil, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, Cao Hamburger, director In 1970, during the height of the military dictatorship in Brazil, a boy [...]

The Unknown by Giuseppe Tornatore (top); The Counterfeiters by Stefan Ruzowitzky (bottom) When I stated in my Oscar 2008 predictions that the Academy’s foreign-language film shortlist is the most difficult to predict, I wasn’t kidding. Nowhere to be found in the list of nine foreign-language film semi-finalists are: Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days — last year’s Cannes Film Festival winner and [...]