Never Look Away (Germany)
Taller than most professional basketball players, with a patrician look that fits his long name and crazy scientist hair, Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has a hard-to-ignore physical presence. His 2007 film, The Lives of Others, a harrowing tale about an East German Stasi agent who becomes obsessed with the couple he’s spying on, began its march towards the Academy Award with a Golden Globe nomination that year.