EXCLUSIVE: TriStar has made a deal for the first English-language film from Damian Szifron. He is the acclaimed director of Wild Tales, which premiered in Cannes and then opened in South America last August and became the biggest indigenous hit in his native Argentina. It also was Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Langu…

Sony Classics’ Wild Tales is the last of the Oscar nominees to open in theaters ahead of the Academy Awards and only just, with the big show tonight. Despite a quiet weekend for new specialty releases amid the Oscar ceremony tonight, Wild Tales did solid business, though it will have some work to do to catch up with Th…

Argentina’s Foreign-Language nominee Wild Tales won’t be getting an in-theater bump for its Oscar run, with the Academy Awards arriving this weekend just behind the U.S. debut of the film by Damián Szifrónis. Other than Wild Tales, however, Oscar weekend is light on new and notable specialty titles as the seemingly…

Sony Pictures Classics hit an all-time company record this morning, collecting 18 Oscar nominations, outstripping their 2010 high when the label counted 13 nods.  Unlike some other arthouse distributors that have either fallen in love with day-and-date VOD strategies or took their niche titles too wide (only to watch…

The Academy started with a record 83 submissions for the Foreign Language Oscar this year, whittling that down to a shortlist of nine in December. Today we are left with five nominees: Damián Szifrón's Wild Tales (Argentina); Zaza Urushadze's Tangerines (Estonia) Abderrahmane Sissako's Timbuktu (Mauritania); Paweł…

Wild Tales helmer Damián Szifrón calls Warner Bros International's EVP of Europe & Latin America Distribution, Monique Esclavissat, the "godmother” of his film. The exec was responsible for the studio coming aboard the project at script stage, releasing it in Argentina and ultimately across Latin America. Esclavissat…

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has released the shortlist of nine films that will advance to the next stage in the Foreign Language Film Oscar race. As was widely expected Pawel Pawlikowski's 60s-set Polish drama Ida, fresh off of five European Film Awards, is in. Also turning up unsurprisingly are…

Here’s the final entry in my annual assessment of movies that have a chance to pass the first stage of the Foreign Language Oscar race. We expect the shortlist to come out tomorrow and I’m expecting a number of the films I’ve profiled below, and here and here, will make the grade. I spoke with the directors of the…