- Title: REPEAT: FILE - A look at the 2026 Oscar hopefuls for best international feature
- Date: 10th March 2026
- Summary: DUBAI, UAE (MARCH 11, 2026) (REUTERS) UAE RESIDENT WHO ADOPTED TWO DOGS ABANDONED BY THEIR OWNER AFTER LEAVING THE UAE FOLLOWING THE START OF ATTACKS ON FEBRUARY 28, ANNA JENTGEN, AT HER HOME WITH THE DOGS MILO AND BRUNO JENTGEN PLAYING WITH MILO AND BRUNO JENTGEN PLAYING WITH BRUNO MILO SITTING ON GRASS JENTGEN CARESSING MILO BRUNO WALKING (SOUNDBITE) (English) UAE RESIDE
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- Keywords: CLIPS FILE INTERNATIONAL FEATURE IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT JAFAR PANAHI JOACHIM TRIER NOMINATIONS NOMINEES OSCARS RED CARPET SENTIMENTAL VALUE SIRAT THE SECRET AGENT THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB
- Location: VARIOUS
- City: VARIOUS
- Country: Various
- Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Film
- Reuters ID: LVA00G138230012026RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Five films from Brazil, France, Norway, Spain and Tunisia will compete for the Oscar's top prize of best picture on March 15.
"The Secret Agent" is directed by Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonca Filho wanted to explore his childhood memories of life under the country's military dictatorship and how that time echoes in the present.
It sees actor Wagner Moura, who played Pablo Escobar in hit TV series "Narcos," as Marcelo, a mysterious technology researcher who flees to the coastal city of Recife to lay low during Carnival season. However, he ends up being tailed by hitmen in what industry publication IndieWire called "a vividly textured epic about a man trying to get out."
"It Was Just an Accident" from Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who won the Palme d'Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, is a political thriller about a mechanic who is reminded of his time in an Iranian prison when he encounters a man he suspects to be his sadistic jailhouse captor. He rounds up some of his fellow ex-prisoners to confirm the man's identity.
"I don't want to focus on revenge or forgiveness or any of these themes that are on the surface of the plot," Panahi told Reuters recently at the Oscars luncheon. "I just wanted to raise one question, and that was whether the cycle of violence is going to continue, or if it is going to end."
Joachim Trier's Norwegian psychological relationship drama "Sentimental Value," winner of the best film not in the English language BAFTA, is centred on themes of family and reconciliation. Actor Renate Reinsve plays stage actress Nora, who has a complicated relationship with her absent and past-his-prime filmmaker father Gustav Borg, portrayed by Stellan Skarsgard.
Borg, a Swede, returns to Oslo, hoping to make his comeback movie and cast Nora in the lead role. When Nora refuses, Borg reaches out to young Hollywood star Rachel Kemp, played by Elle Fanning, who soon finds herself in the midst of difficult family dynamics and a challenging film set.
"I come from Norway. I always had to look for great films from abroad because there weren't enough Norwegian films being made to just see that. So I am used to, it doesn't surprise me that there is a brilliant French-Iranian film, or Brazilian, or an American, or all of these wonderful films that are now in the Oscar race. For me it's completely natural," said Trier at the Academy Awards annual luncheon.
"It is healthy for cinema. It also makes the Oscars more relevant because you get a feeling that they haven't only considered one country but more countries are being considered in all the categories and that just gives more prestige to the awards."
French-Spanish production "Sirat" from director Oliver Laxe sees veteran actor Sergi Lopez as a father who rushes to Morocco with his young son to search for his daughter who goes missing at a rave.
Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania's fact-based drama "The Voice of Hind Rajab," which won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize along with six other awards at Venice Film Festival, details the efforts of Palestinian relief workers after they receive a call from Hind Rajab, the real-life 5-year-old Palestinian girl who was stranded and later found dead in a car attacked by Israeli forces in Gaza.
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