A look at submissions to the 91st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film: Bosnia and Herzegovina
As the days turn to weeks and we gets closer and closer to time that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announce the nominees for the Oscar of Best Foreign Language Film. It is time to take a look at all the films that are competing for a spot at this prestigious award.
Bosnia and Herzegovina’s submission for the 91st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film is “Never Leave Me” a drama film directed by Aida Begić. She graduated in directing at the sarajevo academy of performing arts. her graduation film “First Death Experience” was presented at Cinéfondation (Cannes IFF) and won numerous awards. her debut feature “Snow” won the grand prix at the Semaine De La Critique and was nominated for a european academy film award.
This film is a story about pain, search for meaning in life and friendship of orphaned. Syrian boys - Isa, Ahmed and Muataz - who live a difficult life as refugees in the magical, mythical Turkish city of Sanliurfa. In their search for recovery from traumatic past, the children will cross the path from destructiveness and hostility to meaningfulness and love. By finding friends in each other, the boys will find their inner peace.
The film is 96 minutes long and was nominated for the Audience award at Edinburgh International Film Festival.
This film received mixed reviews from the critics with Deborah Young of Hollywood Reporter writing “These timely tales of traumatized kids have a hard time crystallizing into a full-fledged drama.” While Wendy Ide of Screen International said “With real-life Syrian refugees in the key roles, authenticity is not an issue here; although performance quality sometimes is.”
With so few awards and critical acclaims, it is too hard to judge how successful this film will be, one has to patiently wait to see if this film is a diamond in the rough or just a lump of coal. With so many countries vying to win this admirable award, it is hard to keep up on the films that were submitted by each country. On the next instalments of this report we will take a look at the other submissions for this award.
