Zona Bonita Magazine

Oscar nominees foreign movies

Probably not the most eye – catching category, but a well – welcomed relieve to the Hollywood dominance of the film industry. Here are the nominees for best foreign language movies:

Ajami

Israel
Directed by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani
In the city of Jaffa, Israel’s Arabs and Jews live in close–and sometimes volatile–proximity. When a young man is mistakenly shot in a gang-related revenge killing, his death has repercussions that echo through the lives and relationships of a wide cross-section of the region’s population.

El Secreto de Sus Ojos

Argentina
Directed by Juan José Campanella
Retired criminal prosecutor Benjamin Esposito plans to write a novel based on a 25-year-old rape and murder case. The resolution of that case has long haunted him, and he turns to his friends and former colleagues, the alcoholic Pablo and the beautiful Irene, now a chief justice, for help.

The Milk of Sorrow

Peru
Directed by Claudia Llosa
In the aftermath of Peru’s violent and repressive former regime, many young women bear emotional scars that have been passed on to them by their victimized mothers. For the withdrawn Fausta, this legacy is a crippling burden that informs the most intimate aspects of her life.

Un Prophète

France
Directed by Jacques Audiard
Petty criminal Malik begins a six-year prison term and finds himself trapped in a dangerous world of warring criminal factions. As the young man seeks his place in this violent society, its balance of power begins to shift from the old-style Corsican mobsters to the more recently formed French-Arab gangs.

The White Ribbon

Germany

Directed by Michael Haneke

In pre-World War I Germany, a series of disturbing and violent incidents in a rural village hint at a dark reality beneath the community’s placid, repressive surface. The rigid espousal of both social and religious proprieties by their elders–and the hypocrisy it often hides–has begun to have a devastating effect on the village children.

The zona bonita team tips The Milk of Sorrow (La teta asustada) as a winner…

Tags: Ajami, El Secreto de Sus Ojos, Oscars, The Milk of Sorrow, The white Ribbon, Un prophete
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