Last year, the anti-war drama “All Quiet in the West” won four Oscars. Now several German stars have the chance to win an award.
The German directors Wim Wenders and Ilker Catak are nominated for an Oscar in the best international film category for their films “Perfect Days” (for Japan) and “The Teacher’s Room” (for Germany). The Los Angeles Film Academy announced this on Tuesday. In addition to Germany and Japan, three other countries are represented in the “International Feature Film” division: Italy (“Io Capitano”), Great Britain (“The Zone of Interest”) and Spain (“The Snow Company”).
“The Teacher’s Room” is about a conflict at a school that gets out of hand. The focus is on a young teacher (Leonie Benesch) who wants to solve a series of thefts at her school. Set in Tokyo, “Perfect Days” tells the story of a man named Hirayama (Koji Yakusho), who works as a toilet cleaner, seems content with his simple life and lives very much in the moment.
Wim Wenders came away empty-handed three times
Wenders has already been nominated for a documentary Oscar three times: in 2000 with the musician documentary “Buena Vista Social Club”, in 2012 with the 3D dance film “Pina” about Pina Bausch and in 2015 with the documentary “The Salt of the Earth” about the Brazilian Photographer Sebastião Salgado. In the end, the director always came away empty-handed.
Catak already won a student Oscar in 2015. His graduation film “Sadakat” at the Hamburg Media School won the Gold Student Oscar in the “Best Foreign Film” category.
Only four German productions have so far won the award for the best international (non-English language) film. Before “Nothing New in the West,” Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck had last achieved this in 2007 with the Stasi drama “The Lives of Others.” In 1980 the film adaptation of the novel “The Tin Drum” by Volker Schlöndorff received the foreign Oscar, in 2003 “Nowhere in Africa” by Caroline Link.
Sandra Hülser is also among the nominees
Another German star has the chance of a golden boy: actress Sandra Hülser. She is nominated for her leading role in the legal drama “Anatomy of a Case.” In the film by French director Justine Triet, Hülser plays a successful writer under suspicion of murder. It is the first Oscar nomination for the actress, who comes from Suhl in Thuringia and lives in Leipzig.
Huller is joined in the Best Actress category by four other actresses: Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Carey Mulligan (“Maestro”), Annette Bening (“Nyad”) and Emma Stone (“Poor Things”) ).
Hülser had recently been nominated for a Golden Globe, but at the award ceremony in early January she lost to the American Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) in the “Best Actress in a Drama Film” category. In December, Hülser was awarded the European Film Prize for Best Actress.
The 96th Academy Awards are scheduled for March 10 at the Dolby Theater in Hollywood.