For the past two years, the Oscar race for international feature hasn’t been a race at all. With Mexico’s “Roma” and South Korea’s “Parasite” heavyweight contenders for best picture, the lower-profile award became a done deal. Disappointingly, early buzz doesn’t point to any equivalent crossover between the two categories this year. The flip side of that, however, is as excitingly competitive an international field as the Oscars have seen in years, while a pandemic-disrupted festival and arthouse scene has made for fewer advance-hyped contenders than usual.
In these topsy-turvy circumstances then, it remains to be seen whether members of the Academy’s international feature branch cleave to the familiar, or delve into the relatively unknown. If old habits prevail, look for Europe to dominate the field: the continent accounted for eight of last year’s 10 shortlisted titles. Over a third of this year’s 93 submissions, meanwhile, are European, with some substantial festival hits among them.
Source: https://variety.com/2021/film/awards/europe-international-shortlist-oscar-1234892771/