Oscars 2021 shortlist for Best International Feature Film includes entries from Taiwan and Hong Kong A Sun and Better Days join entries from Denmark, Iran, Chile, and more
Taiwan s A Sun makes it to the shortlist. Credit: 3 NG Film
The Academy Awards have revealed the shortlist for Best International Feature Film at the 2021 Oscars. Two picks come from Asia: Taiwan’s
A Sun and Hong Kong’s
Better Days.
This year’s shortlist for Best International Feature Film (which prior to 2020 was named Best Foreign Language Film) features 15 films, including titles from Denmark, Iran, Chile, and France.
This is a bigger slate than 2020’s shortlist, which featured 10 titles and only one from Asia: South Korea’s
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The unsettling mood and creeping pace of the Indonesian horror movie “The Queen of Black Magic” take some getting used to. For starters, this remake of the 1981 chiller of the same name has more supporting characters, and attendant backstory, than you might expect from such an atmosphere-reliant horror movie. “The Queen of Black Magic” is also punctuated by the sort of gory violence that s more about sheer bruising impact than emotionally upsetting thrills (I hope you like millipedes and other creepy crawlies).
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The movie’s whodunit-style story is thankfully compelling enough to keep things moving along: a group of adult orphans reckon with a decades-old trauma involving their orphanage’s patriarch Mr. Bandi (Yayu A.W. Unru), and the mysterious disappearance of young Murni (Putri Ayudya) and guardian caretaker Ms. Mirah (Ruth Marini). But there’s also a variable quality to the movie’s storytelling that stops “The Queen of Black Magic” from settling