Neon dominated the International Feature Film Oscar nominations on Wednesday with its films It Was Just An Accident, Sentimental Value, The Secret Agent and Sirāt making it onto the final list of five titles for France, Norway, Brazil and Spain respectively.
Kaouther Ben Hania’s Gaza War-themed drama The Voice of Hind Rajab, which is distributed in the U.S. by Willa, rounded out the selection for Tunisia.
The only shortlisted Neon title not to make it into the nominations was Korean entry No Other Choice. Overall, Neon garnered 18 nominations with these films, in a sign of the growing internationalization of the Academy Awards.
It marks the best ever showing in the category for Neon, which previously enjoyed Best International Feature Film success with the Oscar-winner Parasite.
The distributor now faces a fierce internal and external battle with all five nominated titles in with a chance on different fronts.
Sentimental Value marks Norway’s seventh nomination, with director Joachim Trier also delivering the country’s previous splash in the category with The Worst Person in the World in 2022.
The film debuted in Cannes to a rousing 19-minute ovation. It went on to win the Grand Jury Prize and has been enjoying a buzzy film festival tour and awards season campaign, recently sweeping the board at the European Film Awards. It has picked up another six nominations in other categories including Best Film and Best Director.
Iranian director Jafar Panahi’s Cannes Palme d’Or winner It Was Just An Accident follows in the wake of last year’s French entry Emilia Pérez by Jacques Audiard, which made it to the nomination stage in the category, picking up 13 nominations in total.
Other recent French nominations include Ladj Ly’s Les Misérables in 2020, while France won an international film Oscar with Régis Wargnier’s Indochine in 1993.
The nomination for Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Brazilian entry The Secret Agent follows hot on the heels of the country’s win with Walter Salles’ I’m Still Here at the 97th Academy Awards. The film also premiered in Cannes, where it won Best Actor for Wagner Moura along with Best Director.
The political thriller also made history in Wednesday’s nominations with its star Wagner Moura becoming the first Brazilian to be nominated for Best Actor.
Coming up the outside lane, Spanish entry Sirāt by Oliver Laxe also debuted in Cannes winning the jury prize.
This idiosyncratic tale about a group of ravers in search of themselves and connection against the backdrop of Morocco’s desert rave scene has gained traction in recent weeks, winning a raft of craft prizes at the European Film Awards this past weekend.
Tunisian director Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab is the only nominee not distributed in the U.S. by Neon as well as the only contender in the category to have debuted in Venice, over Cannes.
Reconstructing the events surrounding the real-life killing of a six-year-old Palestinian girl by Israeli troops in Gaza in January 2024, the film brought the house down in Venice where it sparked a 23-minute and 50-second ovation in the presence of executive producers Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara.
Its hard-hitting storyline amid the showbiz divisions over the Israel-Hamas War in Gaza saw the film struggle to secure a U.S. distributor, but Willa will feel vindicated in its support by this nomination.
Alongside No Other Choice, further films not making it through from the 15-title International Feature short list, include Belén (Argentina), Sound of Falling (Germany), Homebound (India), The President’s Cake (Iraq), Kokuho (Japan), All That’s Left of You (Jordan), Palestine 36 (Palestine), Late Shift (Switzerland) and Left-Handed Girl (Taiwan).