News

Keep track of all the submissions for best international feature at the 2023 Academy Awards.

Entries for the 2023 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

Scroll down for profiles of each Oscar entry

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between January 1, 2022 and November 30, 2022. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 3, 2022.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is...

January Tribeca Festival International Narrative Competition Reviewed for Shockya.com by Abe Friedtanzer Director: Viesturs Kairiss Writer: Viesturs Kairiss, Co-writers Andris Feldmanis, Livia Ulman Cast: K?rlis Arnolds Avots, Alise Dzene, Sandis Runge, Baiba Broka, Aleksas Kazanavi?ius, Juhan Ulfsak Screened at: Critics’ link, NY, 4/18/22 Opens: June 10th, 2022 Circumstances often don’t allow for the pursuit of […]

The post Tribeca 2022: January Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

History currently repeating itself lends a particular frisson to Latvian theater, opera and film director Viesturs Kairiss’ “January.” It takes place in early 1991, when the nation’s push for independence (alongside other Baltic states) met with armed Soviet resistance even as the Ussr was falling apart. Those historical events are interwoven with vaguely autobiographical fiction revolving around a mildly nonconformist Riga film school student, one admittedly drawn much as the director was himself in that time and place.

With Moscow leadership again hawkish toward retaining and/or regaining territories of a former empire, this flashback has particular resonance, amplified by the use of archival news and activist-shot footage. Less compelling, if still diverting, are the more conventionally indulgent, nouvelle vague-influenced scenes that comprise a Portrait of the Artist as a Sulky Young Man. The history lesson seems fresher than this protagonist’s stale angst — he is, frankly, a bit of a pill,...

“January,” Viesturs Kairiss’s autobiographical film set in the former Soviet Union, has been acquired for world sales by The Yellow Affair. The movie will have its world premiere at Tribeca in the international narrative competition.

The coming-of-age film sheds light on the political upheaval in the early 1990’s. It follows a Jazis, a 19 year-old aspiring cinematographer who, along with his friends, is trying to pursue his dreams of making movies and enjoy the freedom of young adulthood. His world is thrown into chaos as he is dragged into the people’s peaceful protests against the Soviet Army’s attempted takeover of power in his country.

Kairiss, who co-wrote “January” with Andris Feldmanis and Livia Ulman, said it was a highly personal film for him.

“I was 19 in January 1991, so I am very familiar with the protagonists and events of the film. At that age, I was fighting for my...