The buddy comedy from hell may land a nomination at the Academy Awards. Greece’s submission for Best Foreign Language Film for the 2017 Oscars will be Athina Rachel Tsangari’s “Chevalier,” Screen Daily reports.
The award-winning dark comedy takes place on a luxury boat, and centers on a group of six men who decide to play a game. They’ll compete to determine who is “The Best at Everything.” But how do you quantify or qualify bestness? The criteria the men agree upon includes morning-time boners and sleep posture. He who earns the most points wins the contest. The game escalates quickly, with its participants desperate to prove their masculinity to one another and themselves.
“Chevalier” was named Best Film at the BFI London Film Festival, and received a special jury prize at the Cartagena International Film Festival.
This marks the second time that Tsangari has been submitted as Greece’s candidate for an Oscar nomination. “Attenberg” was chosen to represent Greece for the 2012 Oscars, but did not land a nomination. The past four films Greece has submitted have been directed by men.
Germany has selected Maren Ade’s Cannes hit “Toni Erdmann” for Oscar contention, and New Zealand will be represented by Pietra Brettkelly’s “A Flickering Truth,” which centers on the preservation of film archives in Afghanistan.
Fifteen percent of the Oscar submissions for 2016’s Best Foreign Language Film category were directed by women. One woman-directed feature ended up as a nominee: “Mustang,” Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s coming-of-age story about repressed sisters living in a remote Turkish village.
