80th Golden Globes Non-English Language Film Submissions

Who would have imagined that the actor whose image became synonymous with the worldwide sensation of  Squid Game was secretly preparing his directorial debut? Lee Jung-jae, who was nominated for numerous accolades (including for Golden Globes Best Television Actor - Drama Series in 2021), was present at the 75th Cannes International Film Festival with his first film, Hunt, screened in the Midnight section. Hunt adapts a story that Lee Jung-jae developed over four years.

Chilean director Fernando Guzzoni’s fourth feature film, Blanquita, is probably his most successful one, for which he won the Horizons Award for Best Screenplay at the Venice Film Festival in 2022. The film, coproduced by Chile, Mexico, France, Luxembourg and Poland, has been invited to other important festivals such as Busan, Sao Paulo, Thessaloniki and Stockholm, and the Huelva Latin American Film Festival, where it took the main prize.

In her eighth feature, One Fine Morning, filmmaker Mia Hansen-Løve comes up with a deceptively simple drama: a poignant, quietly illuminating rumination on being a mother, daughter and lover in these times. Hansen-Løve also wrote the deeply personal film, set in Paris, about a translator, Sandra (Léa Seydoux), who is a single mom to an eight-year-old (Camille Leban Martins), while trying to find a decent nursing home for her dad (Pascal Greggory), a former professor rapidly deteriorating from a neurodegenerative disorder.

The Exam, a drama from Iraq, is about Rojin (Vania Salar), a young Kurdish-Iraqi woman who is about to take the university exam. Heartbroken and suffering from depression after the disappearance of her fiancé, Rojin fears her father’s rule that if she fails the exam, he will force her into marriage.

This Chinese comedy-drama follows the story of an orphaned brother and sister duo surviving alone. Jing Hao lives with his 6-year-old sister, Tong.

The Substitute is the story of a teacher who goes on a journey of self-discovery when he accepts a teaching job in a working-class neighborhood. When the Toronto Film Festival organizers invited director Diego Lerman to present his newest film, the director was included in the Special Presentations section reserved for high-profile premieres and leading filmmakers such as Sam Mendes, Mia Hansen-Løve, Martin McDonagh, Darren Aronofsky, Stephen Frears, and Steven Spielberg.

Is the world ready for a farce set in the middle of a pandemic? A Gaza Weekend was made before 2020 and Covid but now appears strangely prescient. The plot takes place in Israel, when the country is hit by a mutant virus and the Gaza Strip becomes the safest spot in the world.

Eight fishermen on a boat in the Bay of Bengal find a young woman caught in their nets. At first, they think she’s dead, a very bad omen according to local superstition.

Six Weeks (Hat Het), the feature drama debut of director Noemi Veronika Szakonyi, is a portrait of a young woman putting her child up for adoption. With a screenplay that she co-wrote with Mate Artur Vincze and Daoud Daniel, Szakonyi focuses on a defiant teenager, Zsofi (Katalin Roman), who gives up her newborn daughter.

The Nepalese film Butterfly on a Windowpane is the feature debut of screenwriter, producer and director Sujit Bidari, whose previous work, the short film Savitri (2013), has been selected by numerous international film festivals. Butterfly on a Windowpane is a quiet, almost lyrical film.