The Foreigners of the Oscars January 9–19, 2014

As the Academy Awards are approaching, Istanbul Modern Cinema offers a reminder of the “Best Foreign Language Film.” The 10 films in the program represent a category which brings together films from diverse cultures and languages which were big hits in world festivals and, despite being Oscar-nominated, are outside the Hollywood track. Including the three movies that made it to the short-list among the candidate films from 76 countries, the program presents János Szász’s The Notebook which won the Crystal Globe award at the Karlovy-Vary Film Festival; Romania’s entry, Child’s Pose; Academy award winner Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s latest film The Past; Metro Manila, one of the most talked-about films of the year, recipient of the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival where it premiered; and Belgium’s entry, The Broken Circle Breakdown, which won the Panorama Audience Award at the Berlinale.