Foreign Language Film Submissions 2017

Layla M. , a Dutch entry in the 2018 Golden Globe race for Best Foreign-Language Film, is a hard-hitting drama about Islamic extremism.

Every year, the Dubai International Film Festival takes a couple of films from Arabic countries that were screened successfully in December, and sponsors them to participate in the Golden Globes, organizing an evening of cinema from that region that is becoming a tradition in the HFPA calendar. One of the films selected for that special night this year was Tramontane, the feature debut of Vatche Boulghourjian which won the Muhr Award for Best Actress for Julia Kassar, an important accolade in Arab cinema.

In 2009, 47-year-old Samuel Maoz was the first Israeli to win the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival with his directorial debut Lebanon. His second film, Foxtrot, was awarded the Silver Lion this year.

Following the Golden Globe nominee Force Majeure, Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund presents his latest work, The Square, which was awarded the Palme d’Or at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. The film, which also features Elisabeth Moss and Dominic West, is now competing as Sweden’s submission for the foreign-language Golden Globe Award.

Montreal might turn 350 in the minds of most Canadians, but French-Canadian director François Girard's Hochelaga, Land of Souls shows that the history of their land is much more complex than that. The opening of the film shows the aftermath of a 13th-century battle in which many Natives died.

Andrea Bocelli might be blind, but this did not prevent him from becoming one of the greatest singers in the world. His autobiographical novel The Music of Silence has now been adapted to the screen by British director Michael Radford.

The well-traveled winner of several festival awards, including the Jury Grand Prix and Best Actress prize at the 20th Shanghai International Film Festival, Iranian drama Yellow, writer-director Mostafa Taghizadeh’s debut feature, unfolds against a uniquely intense backdrop and tells a tale of friendships ripped apart. What starts off as a road trip movie, with a seemingly carefree and well-integrated mix of male and female friends seeking to pay a fond farewell to their homeland before leaving for Italy to start new jobs on a shared project, quickly detours into more fraught territory after a terrible car accident injures a young boy.

Since they joined forces for a TV movie in their native Bulgaria seven years ago, former TV reporter Kristina Grozeva and art school graduate Petar Valchanov have become one of the most formidable teams in local cinema. Their short film, Jump, was nominated for the European Film Awards, the first time it happened for that country.

Based on the best-selling novel by Cambodian author and human rights activist Loung Ung, First They Killed My Father tells the gripping story of how a young Loung and her siblings survived the deadly Khmer Rouge regime from 1975 to 1978. Told through the eyes of Ung from the ages of five to nine years old, the film depicts the indomitable spirit and devotion of her family as they struggle to stay together during the Khmer Rouge years.

Italian American director Jonas Carpignano’s A Ciambra won a Directors Fortnight prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was acquired for distribution by IFC’s Sundance Select label. It is a film steeped in the Italian neorealist tradition as well as modern documentary influenced dramas (think Andrea Arnold’s American Honey or Chloe Zhao’s The Rider, also at Cannes this year).