Author: Vatche Chakhmakhchian

Dec 21 2023

BY JEREMY KAY

The Academy has announced shortlists in 10 categories for the 96th Oscars in March 2024, with The Taste Of Things (France), Fallen Leaves (Finland), The Zone Of Interest (UK), Totem (Mexico), and Amerikatsi, Armenia’s first entry on the shortlist, among those making the cut in the international feature film category.

The international contest also sees Pawo Choyning Dorji’s drama The Monk And The Gun becomes Bhutan’s second film to make the shortlist after his Oscar nominee Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom from two seasons ago.

A strong showing by European films besides the aforementioned comprises J.A. Bayona’s Society Of The Snow representing Spain; Leonie Benesch’s The Teachers’ Lounge for Germany, Nikolaj Arcel’s Danish entry The Promised Land, Matteo Garrone’s Io Capitano for Italy, Mstyslav Chernov’s Ukrainian documentary 20 Days In Mariupol, and Hlynur Pálmason’s Godland (Iceland), which premiered in Cannes 2022.

Asmae El Moudir’s Moroccan documentary The Mother Of All Lies and Kaouther Ben Hania’s Tunisian documentary hybrid Four Daughters fly the flag for Africa.

Wim Wenders’ Japanese submission Perfect Days starring Cannes best actor winner Koji Yakusho is the other Asian representative alongside Amerikatsi, Michael A Goorjian’s Armenian comedy drama which premiered in Woodstock Film Festival.

Lila Aviles’s Mexican entry Totem is the only film from Latin America to advance.

In total six shortlisted films premiered in Cannes: Jonathan Glazer’s grand prix winner The Zone Of Interest; best director winner Tran Anh Hung’s The Taste Of Things; Perfect Days; Un Certain Regard entry The Mother Of All Lies; Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves; and Four Daughters. 

Three premiered in Venice: Silver Lion winner Io Capitano, Society Of The Snow, and The Promised Land.

Lila Avilés’s Totem and The Teachers’ Lounge premiered in Berlin. 20 Days In Mariupol premiered in Sundance, and The Monk And The Gun debuted in Busan.

Shortlists were announced for documentary feature, documentary short film, international feature film, makeup and hairstyling, music (original score), music (original song), animated short film, live action short film, sound and visual effects.

Documentary titles advancing to the nominations voting stage include 20 Days In Mariupol, American Symphony, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie, Beyond Utopia, The Eternal Daughter, and Four Daughters.

Barbie secured five places on shortlists overall on Thursday, more than any other film. It has three in contention for music (original song) category, while there are two in that category from The Color Purple, two from Flora And Son, and one each from Asteroid City, Killers Of The Flower Moon and Past Lives, among others.

Films moving forward in the visual effects category include Poor Things, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Napoleon, Society Of The Snow, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3, and Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child Of Fire.

Nominations voting runs January 11-16, 2024, and nominations will be announced on January 23, 2024.

The 96th Oscars will take place on March 10, 2024, at the Dolby Theatre at Ovation Hollywood and will be televised live on ABC and in more than 200 territories worldwide.

Fifteen films will advance in the category. There were 167 eligible films. Members of the documentary branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by title, are:

American Symphony
Apolonia, Apolonia
Beyond Utopia
Bobi Wine: The People’s President
Desperate Souls, Dark City And The Legend Of Midnight Cowboy
The Eternal Memory
Four Daughters
Going To Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project
In The Rearview
Stamped From The Beginning
Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
A Still Small Voice
32 Sounds
To Kill A Tiger
20 Days In Mariupol

Fifteen films will advance. There were 114 eligible films. Members of the documentary branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by title, are:

The ABCs Of Book Banning
The Barber Of Little Rock
Bear
Between Earth & Sky
Black Girls Play: The Story Of Hand Games
Camp Courage
Deciding Vote
How We Get Free
If Dreams Were Lightning: Rural Healthcare Crisis
Island In Between
The Last Repair Shop
Last Song From Kabul
Nǎi Nai & Wài Pó
Oasis
Wings Of Dust

Fifteen films will advance to the next round of voting. Films from 88 countries and regions were eligible in the category.

Academy members from all branches were invited to participate in the preliminary round of voting and must have met a minimum viewing requirement to be eligible to vote in the category.

In the nominations round, Academy members from all branches are invited to opt in to participate and must view all 15 shortlisted films to vote.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

Armenia, Amerikatsi
Bhutan, The Monk And The Gun
Denmark, The Promised Land
Finland, Fallen Leaves
France, The Taste Of Things
Germany, The Teachers’ Lounge
Iceland, Godland
Italy, Io Capitano
Japan, Perfect Days
Mexico, Totem
Morocco, The Mother Of All Lies
Spain, Society Of The Snow
Tunisia, Four Daughters
Ukraine, 20 Days In Mariupol
United Kingdom, The Zone Of Interest

Ten films will advance category. All members of the Academy’s makeup artists and hairstylists branch will be invited to view excerpts and interviews with the artists from each of the shortlisted films on January 14, 2024. Branch members will vote to nominate five films for final Oscar consideration.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by title, are:

Beau Is Afraid
Ferrari
Golda
Killers Of The Flower Moon
The Last Voyage Of The Demeter
Maestro
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Society Of The Snow

Fifteen scores will advance. There were 148 eligible films. Members of the music branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees.

The scores, listed in alphabetical order by film title, are:

American Fiction
American Symphony
Barbie
The Boy And The Heron
The Color Purple
Elemental
The Holdovers
Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny
Killers Of The Flower Moon
Oppenheimer
Poor Things
Saltburn
Society Of The Snow
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse
The Zone Of Interest

Fifteen songs will advance in the category. There were 94 eligible films. Members of the music branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees.

The original songs, along with the motion picture in which each song is featured, are listed below in alphabetical order by film title:

“It Never Went Away” from American Symphony
“Dear Alien (Who Art In Heaven)” from Asteroid City
“Dance The Night” from Barbie
“I’m Just Ken” from Barbie
“What Was I Made For?” from Barbie
“Keep It Movin’” from The Color Purple
“Superpower (I)” from The Color Purple
“The Fire Inside” from Flamin’ Hot
“High Life” from Flora And Son
“Meet In The Middle” from Flora And Son
“Can’t Catch Me Now” from The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes
“Wahzhazhe (A Song For My People)” from Killers Of The Flower Moon
“Quiet Eyes” from Past Lives
“Road To Freedom” from Rustin
“Am I Dreaming” from Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse

Fifteen films will advance in the category There were 93 eligible films. Members of the short films and feature animation branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by title, are:

Boom
Eeva
Humo (Smoke)
I’m Hip
A Kind Of Testament
Koerkorter (Dog Apartment)
Letter To A Pig
Ninety-Five Senses
Once Upon A Studio
Our Uniform
Pachyderme
Pete
27
War Is Over! Inspired By The Music Of John & Yoko
Wild Summon

Fifteen films will advance in the category. There were 187 eligible films. For the first time, Academy members from all branches were invited to participate in the preliminary round of voting and must have met a minimum viewing requirement to be eligible to vote in the category.

In the nominations round, Academy members from all branches are invited to opt in to participate and must view all 15 shortlisted films to vote.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by title, are:

The After
The Anne Frank Gift Shop
An Avocado Pit
Bienvenidos A Los Angeles
Dead Cat
Good Boy
Invincible
Invisible Border
Knight Of Fortune
The One Note Man
Red, White And Blue
The Shepherd
Strange Way Of Life
The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar
Yellow

Ten films will advance. All eligible members of the sound branch vote to determine the shortlist and the nominees. Academy members will be invited to view excerpts from each of the shortlisted films beginning January 11, 2024, in the San Francisco Bay area, followed by London, Los Angeles and New York. Branch members will vote to nominate five films for final Oscar consideration.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by title, are:

Barbie
The Creator
Ferrari
The Killer
Killers Of The Flower Moon
Maestro
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Napoleon
Oppenheimer
The Zone Of Interest

Ten films remain in the running. The visual effects branch executive committee determined the shortlist. All members of the visual effects branch will be invited to view excerpts and interviews with the artists from each of the shortlisted films on January 13, 2024. Branch members will vote to nominate five films for final Oscar consideration.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by title, are:

The Creator
Godzilla Minus One
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3
Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One
Napoleon
Poor Things
Rebel Moon – Part One: A Child Of Fire
Society Of The Snow
Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse.

Switzerland – Dec 7 2023

The Karabakh conflict, which has its roots in the great power struggles of the early 18th century, has escalated whenever the imperial control of the surrounding great powers – including Safavid Persia, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union – waned. In 1921, after the Red Army had conquered the entire South Caucasus, the Moscow controlled Caucasus Bureau of the Communist Party declared Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh an autonomous region. However, this region was administratively part of the newly created Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, which led to frequent tensions between Karabakh Armenians and Baku. The current phase of the conflict began during the perestroika era in
1987, when Karabakh Armenians attempted to join Soviet Armenia, prompting a violent response from Azerbaijan. Full-scale war broke out after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Tens of thousands died on both sides, and hundreds of thousands were displaced. When a cease-fire was reached in 1994, the Karabakh Armenians emerged victorious, controlling territories well beyond the original borders of the Soviet Autonomous Region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The search for a resolution to the conflict within the OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by the United States, Russia, and France, began almost simultaneously with the outbreak of the war in 1992. By the mid-2000s the sides had agreed on basic principles of conflict resolution, including ones for the non-use of force, Karabakh’s self-determination through a future referendum, and Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. The latter included the return to Azerbaijan of territories captured by Armenian forces outside of Nagorno-Karabakh during the war, with the provision of a land corridor linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, the return of displaced persons, and the deployment of an international peacekeeping force. 

None of these proposals has ever been implemented. For more than two decades, an asymmetrical military balance maintained relative peace. While Azerbaijan was the larger power overall, the Armenians benefited from a strategic geographic advantage, holding the higher ground. However, this balance was increasingly disrupted in Azerbaijan’s favor. One factor was the support Azerbaijan received from Turkey. Under their “one nation, two countries” formula, Turkey and Azerbaijan signed a comprehensive military agreement in August 2010 and have since held regular joint military exercises. An increasing number of Azerbaijan’s military officers are trained in Turkey – reaching approximately 85 percent by 2020. Ankara has also played a significant role for Azerbaijan in operational planning and military intelligence, and Turkey emerged as a key supplier of arms to Azerbaijan. In particular, the latter includes the supply of “Bayraktar” drones,which diminished Armenia’s strategic geographic advantage. Other major arms suppliers to the Azerbaijani military include Israel, Russia, and the United States.

https://css.ethz.ch/en/center/CSS-news/2023/12/geopolitical-echoes-of-the-karabakh-conflict.html

The Kyiv Independent, Ukraine

Nov 24 2023

Armenia is not considering leaving the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the country's Deputy Foreign Minister Mnatsakan Safarian said on Nov. 23, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

The statement comes shortly after Yerevan's decision not to attend today's summit of the Russia-led military coalition in Minsk, attracting criticism from Belarusian and Russian leaders.

The CSTO is an international military alliance consisting of Belarus, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia.

The summit, chaired by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko and attended by his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, will reportedly focus on "issues of international and regional security" and Kazakhstan's upcoming presidency.

Despite the snub, Armenia also does not currently plan to discuss the withdrawal of Russian military bases on Armenian territory that host thousands of Russian troops, Safarian said.

"At the moment, there are no such topics on our agenda," the Armenian official told journalists.

Tensions between Yerevan and Moscow have been mounting as Russia failed to halt Azerbaijan's offensive against Nagorno-Karabakh despite deploying peacekeepers in the region since the last war in 2020.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan implied that Russia failed to live up to its commitments as an ally, adding that he sees no further use in the continued presence of Russian military bases in the country.

The rift between the two formal allies has been further manifested in Armenia's refusal to participate in CSTO maneuvers in Kyrgyzstan or the coalition's ministerial meetings.

As worries grow that Baku may expand its aggression even to Armenian soil, the South Caucasian country has been looking further west for new allies, securing military aid from France.