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Denmark
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Denmark
Mifunes Sidste Sang/Mifune
This year's Danish submission shares a good many element's with
last year's. Mifune Sidste Sang (Mifune) is from the
same production company as Festen (The Celebration), and boasts
the same producer, cinematographer and editor. Moreover, it was
made under the now infamous 'Dogme '95' rules - although director
Sřren Kragh-Jacobsen appears to have adopted their getting-back-to
basics philosophy rather than the rule-book.
Its theme, says Jacobsen, is the lies of the past that come back
to haunt the present and, in particular, Kresten (Andres W Berthelsen).
A successful yuppie, Kresten is determined to keep his past a secret.
But when his father dies, he has to return to the family farm and
take charge of his retarded brother, Rud (Jesper Asholt), hiring
the beautiful Liva (Iben Hjejle) as a housekeeper. But she, too,
has her secrets.
"The script wasn't finished until four days before shooting was
due to start, and that suited us just fine," says Jacobsen. "I wanted
to get away from contrived drama and make an affectionate, optimistic
summer film. Of course I could have made a 'Sřren Goes Absurd' -
but I am not Lars von Trier: I am a realist, a story-teller and
I have stayed within my own tradition and kept to the Dogme rules
at the same time."
Prod co: Nimbus Film, in co-operation with Zentropa Entertainments,
DRTV and SVT Drama; Prod: Birgitte Hald, Morten Kaufmann; Dir: Sřren
Kragh-Jacobsen; Scr: Sřren Kragh-Jacobsen, Anders Thomas Jensen,
from an original story by Kragh-Jacobsen; Ph: Anthony Dod Mantle;
Ed: Valdis Oskarsdottir. With Anders W Berthelsen (Kresten), Iben
Hjejle (Liva), Jesper Asholt (Rud), Sofie Grĺbřl (Claire), Emil
Tarding (Bjarke), Anders Hove (Gerner). 98 mins. Sales: Trust Film
Sales.
1998 submission: Festen/The Celebration (not nominated).
Previous Oscars: Babettes gćstebud/Babette's Feast
(1987), Pelle Erobreren/Pelle The Conqueror (1988).
Finland
Häjyt/The Tough Ones
More successful at the Finnish box office than Armageddon,
Häjyt (The Tough Ones) is a thriller whose title
for Finnish audiences conjures up memories of a mythical group of
bandits who were Robin Hood-style folk heroes from the mid-18th
centiry right through to the early 1900s.
The main characters here are Jussi (Samuli Edelmann) and Antti (Juha
Veijonen), two former bank robbers who return from jail to find
that their buried loot has disappeared. After taking their revenge
on the farmer they hold responsible, they start up an illicit booze
business, while their former friend Heikki (Teemu Lehtilä), now
the local cop, initially turns a blind eye. But, as they begin to
sell their moonshine to kids, the community turns against them and
a spiral of destruction begins.
"I have been a big fan of western movies ever since I was a kid,"
says 29-year-old director Aleksa Mäkelä of his third feature. "If
I had made it five years ago, it would have been different: boyish
and lighter. Time took its toll: I got older and the passing years
matured the story. Now it is a dramatic tale that starts as a comedy
but turns into a tragedy."
Prod co: Solar Films Inc Oy, in association with YLE Finland TV
2; Prod: Markus Selin; Dir: Aleksi Mäkelä; Scr: Aleksi Bardy; Ph:
Pini Hellstedt; Prod des: Risto Karbula; Ed: Kauko Lindfors; Mus:
Kalle Chydenius. With Samuli Edelmann (Jussi Murikka), Juha Veijonen
(Antti Karhu), Teemu Lehtilä (Heikki Grönberg), Kalevi Haapoja (Grandfather
Karhu), Arttu Kapulainen (Roope Karhu). 105 mins. Sales: Smile Entertainment.
1998 submission: Kuningasjätkä/A Summer By The River
(not nominated).
Previous Oscars: None.
France
Est-ouest/East-West
Although perhaps less well-known than other directors of his generation,
Régis Wargnier has the distinct advantage, in the context of the
Academy Awards, of being the only French film-maker to have taken
home an Oscar in the past 20 years (his Indochine was voted Best
Foreign Film in 1992).
Wargnier's new movie, Est-ouest (East-West), has much
the same scope, but deals with subject matter that is only indirectly
linked to French history. It tells the story of Alexei, a young
Russian doctor (Barber Of Siberia star Oleg Menshikov),
and his French wife, Marie (Sandrine Bonnaire), who are lured back
to Russia after World War II by false promises of an amnesty.
Once there, however, they find themselves trapped in a world of
poverty, oppression and distrust (the former Soviet Union is the
undisputed baddie of the piece). Their relationship collapses and
the nightmare only ends seven years later, when an actress with
the visiting French Théâtre National Populaire (Catherine Deneuve)
arranges Marie's escape.
Co-written by Wargnier with Russian director Rustam Ibragimbekov
and Prisoner Of The Mountains director Sergei Bodrov
(whose son plays a young Russian swimmer who escapes along with
Marie), East-West was the opening-night film in the
Piazza Grande in Locarno in August and was released in France in
early September.
Prod co: UGC YM, France 3 Cinéma (France), NTV Profit (Russia),
Mate Producciones (Spain), Gala Films (Bulgaria); Prod: Yves Marmion;
Dir: Régis Wargnier; Scr: Sergei Bodrov, Rustam Ibragimbekov, Louis
Gardel, Régis Wargnier; Ph: Laurent Dailland; Prod des: Vladmir
Svetozarov, Alexei Levchenko; Ed: Hervé Schneid; Mus: Patrick Doyle.
With Sandrine Bonnaire (Marie), Oleg Menshikov (Alexei Golovin),
Catherine Deneuve (Gabrielle Develay), Sergei Bodrov Jr (Sasha),
Tatyana Dogilova (Olga). 120 mins. Sales: UGC International.
1998 submission: La Vie Ręvée Des Anges/The Dreamlife Of Angels
(not nominated).
Previous Oscars: Indochine (1992), Préparez
Vos Mouchoirs/Get Out Your Handkerchiefs (1978), La
Vie Devant Soi/Madame Rosa (1977), La Nuit Américaine/Day
For Night (1973), Le Charme Discret De La Bourgeoisie/The
Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie (1972), Un Homme
Et Une Femme/A Man And A Woman (1966), Cybčle, Ou
Les Dimanches De Ville D'Avray/Sundays and Cybele (1962);
Orfeu Negro/Black Orpheus (1959), Mon Oncle/My
Uncle (1958), Les Jeux Interdits/Forbidden Games
(1952), Au Delŕ Des Grilles/The Walls Of Malapaga
(1950, with Italy).
Georgia
Here Comes the Dawn
Submitting a movie for only the second time - the only previous
time was in 1996, with Nana Djordjadze's Les mille et une
recettes du cusinier amoureux (A Chef in Love) - Georgia
moves sharply away from the wistful nostalgia of Djordjadze's film
for a psychological drama set against the backdrop of the Caucasian
nation's recent murderous civil war and its aftermath.
Director Zaza Urushadze is in his mid-30s, having graduated from
the Cinema Department in the Georgian Institute of Theatrical Arts
in Tblilisi in 1987. His first two films - a short and a mid-length
feature - won prizes at, respectively, the Tbilisi Student Film
Festival and the Tbilisi International Film Festival.
Here Comes the Dawn is his first full-length feature.
Dir: Zaza Urishadze.
1998 submission: None.
Previous Oscars: None.
Germany
Aimée & Jaguar
Based on a true story of Germany in wartime (one of whose protagonists
is still very much alive and attended the world premiere on the
opening night of the Berlin Film Festival), Aimée & Jaguar
is about the love affair between a respectable German housewife
- Lilly, aka Aimée, played by Munich stage actress Julianne Köhler
- and Felice, aka Jaguar, a Jewish woman living a clandestine existence
and active with the resistance.
After initially rejecting her new sexuality, Lilly divorces her
husband and Felice moves in with her. But, at their moment of greatest
happiness in the summer of 1944, the Gestapo finally catch up with
Felice...
Set at the height of the Allied bombing of Berlin during 1943-4,
Aimée & Jaguar is a first feature from TV director Max Fäberböck,
who was attracted to it by "the yearning, the abyss, the immensity
- all those terrible German things which one hears in the music
of Furtwängler and which, deep down, have a malignant beauty," he
says.
"There is no jumbled moral in the film, no condemnation of the events,
no aesthetic embellishment or avoidance of things which were hard
and painful in real life," Fäberböck adds. "Where there is dirt
we have left it. But we have also shown the beauty."
Prod co: Senator Film; Prod: Hanno Huth, Günther Rohrbach; Dir:
Max Färberböck; Scr: Max Färberböck, based on the book by Erica
Fischer; Ph: Tony Imi; Prod des: Albrecht Konrad, Uli Hanisch; Ed:
Barbara Hennings; Mus: Jan AP Kaczmarek. With Maria Schrader (Felice
Schragenheim), Julianne Köhler (Lilly Wust), Johanna Wokalek (Ilse),
Heike Makatsch (Klärchen), Elisabeth Degen (Lotte). 126 mins. Sales:
Senator Film.
1998 submission: Lola Rennt/Run Lola Run (not nominated).
Previous Oscars: Die Blechtrommel/The Tin Drum (1979).
Greece
Apo Tin Akri Tis Polis/
From The Edge Of The City
Taking as its background a problem which has been endemic in most
eastern Mediterranean countries since the collapse of communism,
Apo Tin Akri Tis Polis (From The Edge Of The City)
tells the violent story of a group of young 'pontioi' - Greeks who
grew up on the Black Sea coast in what was once the Soviet Union.
Having relocated to Menidi, a rundown neighbourhood on the western
outskirts of Athens, they are determined to challenge the culture
to which they belong, but which spurns them as outsiders.
Their leader, Sasha (Stathis Papadopoulos), is more ambitious than
the others, but still cannot avoid being drawn into a world of petty
crime, drug-dealing and male prostitution in the Omonia Square area
of Athens.
This is the first of Greek director Constantinos Giannaris' features
to be made in his native Greece. His short films were shown at festivals
in the late eighties, but his first two features were made abroad:
one in Mexico, followed by 3 Steps To Heaven, which
was made in the UK (where it was funded by the British Film Institute),
starred Katrin Cartlidge and toured the festival circuit in 1995
after debuting in the Directors Fortnight at Cannes.
Prod co: Mythos in association with Rosebud, Hot Shot Productions,
Greek Film Centre; Prod: Dionysios Samiotis, Anastasios Vasiliou;
Dir/Scr: Constantinos Giannaris; Ph: George Argiroiliopoulos; Prod
des: Roula Nicolaou; Ed: Ioanna Spiliopoulou; Mus: Akis Daoutis.
With Stathis Papadopoulos (Sasha), Dimitris Papadoulidis (Giorgos),
Theidora Tzimou (Natasha), Costas Cotsiandis (Cotsian), Panagiotis
Chartomatsidis (Panagiotis). 90 mins. Sales: Greek Film Centre.
1998 submission: Mia Eoniotita Ke Mia Mera/Eternity And A
Day (not nominated).
Previous Oscars: None
Hong Kong
Chin Yin Man Yu/
Ordinary Heroes
The latest movie by doyenne of the Hong Kong art-film scene Ann
Hui had its premiere in competition in Berlin in February, where
audiences had difficulty grasping its multi-faceted portrait of
political change and disillusionment in Hong Kong.
The backbone of the story is the relationship between two people
on the margins of society: Sow Fung-Tai (played by Lee Lai-Chun,
also known as Rachel Lee) and Lee Siu-Tung (Lee Kang-Sheng). But
the real focus is the growing disillusionment felt by left-wing
activists throughout the eighties, culminating in the June 4 1989
Tiananmen Square massacre.
Hui had long been looking for a way to convey the "feeling" of Hong
Kong in the eighties, she says, and found it by chance in a newspaper
report about a young homeless man murdered in a brawl. He turned
out to have been a former leftist intellectual whose disillusionment
with China had led to his downfall.
"The story also becomes in a way a rough history of social protest
in Hong Kong," adds the director. "My view is that these protests
have always ended in defeat and been largely ignored by the public,
only culminating in the events of June 4th, which was also a kind
of transcendant defeat."
Prod co: Class-Limited; Prod/Dir: Ann Hui; Scr: Chan Kin-chung;
Ph: Yu Lick Wai; Prod des: Elbut Poon, Ringo Fung; Ed: Kwong Chi-leong;
Mus: Clarence Hui, Chiu Tsang Hei. With Lee Lai-Chun (Sow Fung-Tai),
Lee Kang-Sheng (Lee Siu-Tung), Anthony Wong (Kam), Tse Kwan-Ho (Yau).
129 mins. Sales: Harvest Crown.
1998 submission: Heunggong chaichou/Made in Hong Kong
(not nominated).
Previous Oscars: None.
Hungary
Nekem Lámpást Adott Kezembe Az Ur Pesten/The Lord's Lantern
In Budapest
A five-episode satire, not to so much on life in contemporary Hungary
as on life in general, the elaborately-titled Nekem Lámpást
Adott Kezembe Az Ur Pesten (The Lord's Lantern In Budapest)
is the first film in seven years from 77-year-old Miklós Jancsň,
one of the most noted Hungarian directors of the sixties.
A five-part story about a pair of rogues who are by turns gravediggers,
crooks, bankers, lawyers and businessmenn and winner of the foreign
critics' prize at last February's Hungarian Film Week, The Lord's
Lantern is quite different from earlier Jancso films, with their
elaborate choreography and pessimistic worldview. "It is not one
story but five little stories," says Jancsň, "and the reason we
feel there is a connection between them is that they are all set
in Budapest, where anything can happen."
The overall point is quite simple: that life is to be enjoyed. "Look,"
says the director, "with the exception of man, every animal knows
that the most important thing about life is to enjoy it. Well, this
film of ours will help you do so. And we are very sorry to say you
will get more than you expect: it's pure, farsighted and user-friendly."
Prod co: Kreativ Media Muhely, 3J+1Bt; Prod: Jozsef Bojte; Dir:
Miklós Jancsň; Scr: Miklós Jancsň, based on an idea by Gyula Hernádi;
Ph: Ferenc Grunwalsky; Prod des: Tamas Banovich; Ed: Zsuzsa Csakany;
Mus: Gyorgy Ferenczi. With Zoltan Mucsi, Peter Scherer, Miklós Jancsň,
Gyula Hernádi, Emese Vasvari. 107 mins. Sales: Hungarofilm.
1998 submission: Roman kris/Cigánytörvény/The Law Of The Gypsies
(not nominated).
Previous Oscars: Mephisto (1981).
Iceland
Ungfrúin Gó A Og Húsi/
Honour Of The House
Shot on the island of Flatey in western Iceland and in the studio
in Denmark and Sweden (where two of main production company Umbifilm's
partners are based), Ungfrúin Gó A Og Húsi (The Honour Of
The House) is based on an early story by Icelandic Nobel
Prize-winner Halldór Laxness and directed by the writer's daughter,
Gudny.
Sumptuously shot on a budget of $2.2 million - medium-to-high by
Icelandic standards - it tells the story of a family for whom pride
and honour count above all else. It is a belief which is put to
the test when one of the family's three sisters, Rannveig (Ragnhildur
Gísladóttir), returns home pregnant from Copenhagen. Her sister
Thuríd (Tinna Gunnlaugsdóttir) is to the forefront in family attempts
to punish the "sinner". She even goes so far as to kidnap the child
- but eventually finds herself in an identical situation to Rannveig.
Indeed, both have had affairs with the same man.
Honour is 45-year-old director Gudny Halldórsdóttir's third feature,
following Under The Glacier (also based on a Laxness
novel) in 1989 and the internationally acclaimed Hekla, The
Men's Choir in 1992.
Prod co: Umbifilm, Pegasos, Nordisk Film Production, Götafilm; Prod:
Halldór Thorgeirsson; Dir: Gudny Halldórsdóttir; Scr: Gudny Halldórsdóttir,
from a short story by Halldór Laxness; Ph: Per Källberg; Prod des:
Tonie Zetterström; Ed: Lárus Ymir Oskarsson; Mus: Ilmar Örn Hilmarsson.
With Ragnhildur Gísladóttir (Rannveig), Tinna Gunnlaugsdóttir (Thuríd),
Egill Olafsson (Björn), Rúrik Haraldsson (Deacon), Agneta Ekmanner
(Deacon's Wife). 110 mins. Sales: Nordisk Film International.
1998 submission: Stikkfrí/Count Me Out (not nominated).
Previous Oscars: None.
India
Earth
A Canadian-Indian co-production with the sales muscle of London-based
United Artists behind it, Earth is probably India's strongest foreign-Oscar
contender in years - especially since it has already had a theatrical
release in the US through Zeitgeist Films.
Deepa Mehta, whose last film Fire was an equally controversial
look at her native land, bases her screenplay on Bapsi Sidhwa's
autobiography, in which an eight-year-old girl from a wealthy Parsee
family living in Lahore is witness to the traumatic events surrounding
one of the most explosive subjects in recent Indian history: the
1947 partition which resulted in the emergence of Pakistan as a
separate state.
Previously, Lahore had been a city in which Hindu, Muslim, Sikh
and Parsee co-existed peacefully - until the massacre of all the
Muslim passengers aboard a train reignited old hatreds and led to
arson and murder. Woven into this historical background is the love
affair between the girl's Hindu nanny (Nandita Das) and a young
Muslim (Rahul Khanna).
"A lot of people have no awareness of these events," says Mehta,
"but it was our holocaust. I grew up with stories about the carnage,
the rapes and the mindless acts of violence that people who had
lived together in relative harmony for centuries committed against
each other in the name of religion."
Prod co: Cracking the Earth Films; Prod: Delip Mehta, Anne Masson,
Deepa Mehta; Dir: Deepa Mehta; Scr: Deepa Mehta, based on the autiobiography
Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa; Ph: Giles Nuttgens; Prod des: Aradhana
Seth; Ed: Barry Farrell; Mus: AR Rahman. With Aamir Khan (Ice Candy
Man), Nandita Das (Ayah Shanta), Rahul Khanna (Hasan), Maia Sethna
(Lenny), Kitu Gidwani (Bunty Sethna). 108 mins. Sales: United Artists.
1998 submission: Jeans (not nominated).
Previous Oscars: None.
Indonesia
Sri
The latest film from Indonesian critic and film teacher Marselli
Sumarno, which was developed with the help of the Rotterdam Film
Festival's Hubert Bals Fund, is a part-naturalistic, part-poetic
story about the title character, a young girl called Sri (Rina Ariyanti),
who comes from a coastal village in Central Java.
She has recently been married to a septuagenarian nobleman called
Hendro (RMT Ronosuripto), and they have a child called Aji. She
has also, with Hendro's help, become a classical Javanese dancer.
But Hendro returns home ill from a protracted gambling session.
Sri, realising he is about to die and has many spiritual accounts
to settle, bargains with Yamadiptai, the God of Death, in scenes
which use the style of Indonesian shadow puppets, in whose plays
Death is a familiar character
Set in Sumarno's native central Javanese town of Solo, Sri
had its international premiere in Pusan in October. "I'd like to
be a good storyteller," says Sumarno, "and there are so many good
stories in Indonesia. I must dig the stories from my own culture
in order to attract an international audience."
Prod co: Fakultas Film with Televisi IKJ and KEM Multimedia Prod:
Kemala Atmojo, Moetaryanto, Marselli Sumarno; Dir/Scr: Marselli
Sumarno; Ph: Hadi Artmono; Prod des: Rudjito; Ed: Subagjo B Santoso;
Mus: Rahayu Supanggah. With Rina Ariyanti (Sri), RMT Ronouripto
(Hendro), Sardono W Kusumo (Yamadiptai), Niniek L Karim (Laksmi),
Dimas Adiprasetyo (Aji). 102 mins. Sales: Marselli Sumarno.
1998 submission: Daun di atas bantal/Leaf on a Pillow
(not nominated).
Previous Oscars: None.
Iran
Rang-e-khoda/
The Colour Of Paradise
Majid Majidi is the director 0f Iran's submission for the second
year running after being the first ever Iranian film-maker to make
it through to the actual nomination stage, in part thanks to the
marketing muscle of Miramax, who picked up Bachecha-Ye Aseman
(The Children Of Heaven), in Toronto had ().
The focus of his new film, Rang-E-Khoda (The
Colour Of Paradise, although the title can also be translated
as 'The Colour of God'), is Mohammad (Mohsen Ramezani),
a blind eight-year-old who is taken home from his school by his
impoverished father to northern Iran, where he spends the summer
amid the ravishing fields of wild-flowers which his sisters pick
to make dye.
"The Colour Of Paradise is a blind child's
discovery of nature and of the whole of existence," says Majidi,
for whom true beauty is in the essence of things rather than merely
intheir visual appearance.
"When I was acting in the film," confirms Ramezani (who is himself
blind), "I felt I had grown up. I saw many things which I had not
seen before - things such as the forest, the sea, the mountains,
the prairie, the flowers and the river... Now I know what the world
looks like."
Prod co: Varahonar Film Co; Prod: Mehdi Karimi, Ali Kalij; Dir/Scr:
Majid Majidi; Ph: Mohammad Davoodi; Prod des: Ashgar Nezhad-Imani;
Ed: Hassan Hassandoost; Mus: Ali Reza Kohandeirie. With Hossein
Mahjub (Hashem), Salame Feizi (Grandmother), Mohsen Ramezani (Mohammad),
Elham Sharifi (Little Sister), Farahnaz Safari (Big Sister). 88
mins. Sales: Varahonar Film Co.
1998 submission: Bachecha-Ye Aseman/The Children Of Heaven
(nominated).
Previous Oscars: None.
Israel
Hachaverim Shel Yana/
Yana's Friends
Sharing a producer and a couple of thematic elements with last year's
Israeli submission, Circus Palestina, Arik Kaplun's
Hachaverim Shel Yana (Yana's Friends) has already
notched up a number of awards, including the Grand Prix, the Best
Actress Award and the Ecumenical Jury Award at Karlovy Vary; the
Wolgin Award and an Honourable Mention at the Jerusalem Film Festival;
the Audience and Critics Award in Moscow; and a clean sweep of the
1999 Israeli Academy Awards.
The title character belongs to that group of people who have turned
contemporary Israel on its head by introducing a whole new stratum
of immigrants seeking the Promised Land two generations after those
who established the State of Israel: she is a recently arrived Russian
Jew.
Yana (Evelyne Kaplun) is a young Russian immigrant in Israel at
the time of the Gulf War, struggling to forge a new identity and
to sort out the more pressing problem of what to do now that she
is pregnant and her husband has abandoned her. Yana attracts the
attention of Eli (Nir Levi), whose only real interest is in casual
sex. But when the threat of Saddam Hussein's scud missiles traps
them in a bedroom, love blossoms.
In a society which has lost touch with some of the hunger for a
better life that helped create a modern Israeli identity, Yana is
a symbol of the energy and passion that has been forgotten. And,
at the same time, an ordinary young woman in love.
Prod co: Transfax Film Productions in association with the Israel
Film Fund, IBA, the Fund for the Promotion of Israeli Films, Amir
Geva Gvahim Productions; Prod: Marek Rozenbaum, Moshe Levinson,
Uri Sabag, Einat Bikel; Dir: Arik Kaplun; Scr: Arik Kaplun, Simeon
Vinokur; Ph: Valentin Belanogov; Prod des: Ariel Roshko; Ed: Tali
Halter, Einat Glazer-Zarchin; Mus: Avi Binyamin. With Nir Levi (Eli),
Evelyne Kaplun (Yana), Moscu Alcalay (Yitshak), Shmil Ben-Ari (Yuri),
Dalia Friedland (Rosa), Vladimir Friedman (Alik). 90 mins. Sales:
Transfax Film Production.
1998 submission: Circus Palestina (not nominated).
Previous Oscars: None.
Italy
Fuori Dal Mondo/
Not Of This World
Far from having the international profile of last year's Italian
submission and runaway winner, Giuseppe Piccioni's Fuori Dal
Mondo (Not Of This World) has been nonetheless widely welcomed
as one of the more distinctive Italian films in a disappointing
year.
It is a storyof three outsiders in modern-day Milan: Caterina (Margherita
Buy), a young nun about to take her final vows; Ernesto (Silvio
Orlando), who owns of a dry-cleaning shop; and Teresa, a homeless
teenager (Carolina Freschi). Their lives are brought together when
Caterina finds an abandoned baby wrapped in an old sweater. The
sweater leads her to Ernesto, and thence to Teresa.
"I was fascinated by the idea of telling the story of a woman about
to take a final decision, the one decision she cannot go back from,
in a world where choices change all the time in politics, work,
love and even sport," says Piccioni.
"We do not live in stable homes, but in temporary camps. To Caterina,
as to nearly all the other characters in the film, something happens
at the wrong moment," he adds. "The things we want always happen
at the wrong moment: too soon, to late, a little before, a little
after..." Prod co: Lumiere & Co in association with RAI; Prod: Lionello
Cerri; Dir: Giuseppe Piccioni; Scr: Giuseppe Piccioni, Gualterio
Rosella, Lucia Zei; Ph: Luca Bigazzi; Prod des: Marco Belluzzi;
Ed: Esmeralda Calabria; Mus: Ludovico Einaudi. With Margherita Buy
(Caterina), Ernesto (Silvio Orlando), Carolina Freschi (Teresa),
Maria Cristina Minerva (Esmeralda), Sonia Gessner (Mother Superior).
100 mins. Sales: Intra Films.
1998 submission: La Vita É Bella/Life Is Beautiful
(winner).
Previous Oscars: Mediterraneo (1991), Cinema
Paradiso (1989), Armacord (1974), Il
Giardino Dei Finzi-Contini/The Garden Of The Finzi-Continis
(1971), Indagine Su Un cittadino Al Di Sopra Di Ogni Sospetto/Investigation
Of A Citizen Above Suspicion (1970), Ieri, Oggi, Domani/Yesterday,
Today And Tomorrow (1964), Otto E Mezzo/81/2
(1963), Le Notti Di Cabiria/Nights Of Cabiria (1957),
La Strada (1956), Le Mura Di Malapaga/The Walls
Of Malapaga (1950, with France), Ladri Di Bicicletti/The
Bicycle Thief (1949), Sciuscia/Shoeshine (1948).
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