Oscar Race Wide Open for Non-U.S. Directors Like Jafar Panahi and Joachim Trier to Shine
As the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences continues to diversify its voting membership, with 55% of 2025’s invitees hailing from outside the U.S., these efforts have not only resulted in more international films like “Drive My Car” and “Emilia Pérez” earning nominations and even trophies across the board, but have also opened the gates for the director category to become more global.
Among this year’s strong international contenders for the director Oscar: Joachim Trier (“Sentimental Value”), Jafar Panahi (“It Was Just an Accident”), Park Chan-wook (“No Other Choice”), Kleber Mendonça Filho (“The Secret Agent”), Kaouther Ben Hania (“The Voice of Hind Rajab”), Oliver Laxe (“Sirāt”) and Annemarie Jacir (“Palestine 36”). While some of these filmmakers have had their films shortlisted or Oscar nominated before, with this year’s wide-open race, they’ll be campaigning to receive their first best director nod.
“There’s a humanism in that we can all look at specific stories from different places and really identify with each other,” Trier says. “And without sounding too cheesy, I think that is a wonderful thing that I grew up enjoying, and I am allowed to contribute now that my films are traveling around the world.”Cannes winners “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Substance” saw their filmmakers get recognized at the Oscars in the director category alongside household U.S. names. It’s a notable trend that has made Cannes a crucial launching pad for international directors who want to plant themselves as formidable contenders early on, especially as powerhouse distributors like Neon now regularly return to the festival to scoop up Oscar hopefuls.
“Cannes is a fantastic loudspeaker that speaks cinema. It takes in all these different types of films,” Trier says. “I think more and more so, we are aware that it’s a really great platform to start a film, to get the conversations going around them.” His previous Oscar nominee “The Worst Person in the World” premiered there, as did his acclaimed family drama (and Oscar hopeful) “Sentimental Value,” which took home this year’s Grand Prix award.
While on the award circuit promoting his Palme d’Or-winning thriller, Panahi has been vocal about the issues affecting the best international feature category, with countries run by authoritative regimes like Iran not wanting to put forth films like “It Was Just an Accident” as their official submission (the film was ultimately selected by France since the project was a co-production).
“There has to be a new solution to resolve this problem and take it out of the hands of the states,” Panahi says.
As international directors continue to break into the conversation, bolder, more genre-bending films are being considered — case in point, Park and his darkly hilarious class satire “No Other Choice.” The auteur recognizes the boom that Korean cinema has enjoyed in the years since 2019’s “Parasite,” for which director Bong Joon Ho won a directing Oscar, an original screenplay Oscar and the film won best picture. “But ever since the pandemic, the [Korean] audience hasn’t returned to the theater, so things are going in a more different and darker direction,” Park says. “I think the situation is more serious in Korea compared to other countries.”
With former president Yoon Suk Yeol cutting crucial government funds for film and the arts, Korean filmmakers have struggled since 2022. “Our new government has promised to provide more funding for filmmakers, but we will have to wait and see how practically helpful those decisions will actually be. We’re all trying to still stay hopeful,” Park says.
Countries like Brazil have also seen fluctuating support from their government depending on the administration, but under current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, public funding has returned. “Brazil has always been very supportive because we have the public funding system. And public funding for the arts is actually part of the Brazilian constitution,” says Filho.
Filho’s profile was raised by his best director prize at Cannes earlier this year, and he can also thank the high profile of Brazilian cinema that Walter Salles’ Oscar-winning “I’m Still Here” built during awards season last year. (That film was also nominated in the lead acting categories, itself rather rare.)
Palestinian filmmakers often turn to co-productions for financial support. Director Jacir’s sweeping historical epic “Palestine 36,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, was a co-production that included France and the U.K.
“Sometimes they could be really unusual combinations, but it’s how we manage to make our films that way. The second [route] is the financiers who want to see these stories. And mostly it’s from the Palestinian community that feels these stories are missing,” says Jacir, who has had two films represent Palestine at the Oscars before.
Seasoned filmmakers like Jacir have also backed film funds and hired local crews with the hopes of supporting new generations of Palestinian directors: “I want people who are working from the heart. That’s more important to me than the experience, because it’s not easy to make films here. And so you have to think about what you are doing. You have to really believe in it.”
“The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which tells the harrowing true story of a young Palestinian girl’s death, was one of just a few strong international contenders to premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it reportedly received the longest standing ovation in the festival’s history. For director Hania, a previous Oscar nominee for “Four Daughters,” that provided a huge platform during fall festival season: “It was the movie of Venice [that] everybody was talking about it, so the beginning was beyond my expectation.”She continues: “The voices from Palestine and from the Arab region in general have been silenced for a long time, and until now, it’s not easy to get distributed, and we have to fight twice [as hard] to show our movies. Movies from Palestine exist, they have quite a long history, but they don’t reach the U.S.”
Additionally, regional festivals have played a part in international directors receiving more recognition, as distributors like Neon make it a priority to include them on press tours. Of those festivals, the Middleburg Film Festival in Virginia has become a pivotal stop. Middleburg’s executive director Susan Koch says: “It always adds so much to have the director there and to be able to interact with the audience, and for people to hear directly from the people involved with the film. We’ve made that a real priority.”
Panahi attended Middleburg to accept this year’s Impact Award. “The distributors told me that we are going to these little towns, to these little festivals, and I listened. I went anywhere and everywhere that they wanted me to go,” Panahi says. “Sometimes we fly to places and we’re not even there for 24 hours. It’s extremely grueling, but I know that if I show any signs of exhaustion, it’s going to affect others.”
With this year’s competitive best director race potentially featuring both new and returning Oscar nominees, many contenders are themselves Academy voters who have been invited in recent years. That means they’ve seen the global changes first-hand.
“I do feel that the human landscape of Academy members has changed, and I think it makes complete sense,” Filho says. “I’m well received in the U.S., my films get recognition and good coverage in the press and U.S. distribution. And I still have to remember that, as much as I’m part of this, it’s still a system that was set up, originally, to recognize U.S. films. So, in one way, I feel foreign, but in another way I feel very much welcome into the mix.”
Among this year’s strong international contenders for the director Oscar: Joachim Trier (“Sentimental Value”), Jafar Panahi (“It Was Just an Accident”), Park Chan-wook (“No Other Choice”), Kleber Mendonça Filho (“The Secret Agent”), Kaouther Ben Hania (“The Voice of Hind Rajab”), Oliver Laxe (“Sirāt”) and Annemarie Jacir (“Palestine 36”). While some of these filmmakers have had their films shortlisted or Oscar nominated before, with this year’s wide-open race, they’ll be campaigning to receive their first best director nod.
“There’s a humanism in that we can all look at specific stories from different places and really identify with each other,” Trier says. “And without sounding too cheesy, I think that is a wonderful thing that I grew up enjoying, and I am allowed to contribute now that my films are traveling around the world.”Cannes winners “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Substance” saw their filmmakers get recognized at the Oscars in the director category alongside household U.S. names. It’s a notable trend that has made Cannes a crucial launching pad for international directors who want to plant themselves as formidable contenders early on, especially as powerhouse distributors like Neon now regularly return to the festival to scoop up Oscar hopefuls.
“Cannes is a fantastic loudspeaker that speaks cinema. It takes in all these different types of films,” Trier says. “I think more and more so, we are aware that it’s a really great platform to start a film, to get the conversations going around them.” His previous Oscar nominee “The Worst Person in the World” premiered there, as did his acclaimed family drama (and Oscar hopeful) “Sentimental Value,” which took home this year’s Grand Prix award.
While on the award circuit promoting his Palme d’Or-winning thriller, Panahi has been vocal about the issues affecting the best international feature category, with countries run by authoritative regimes like Iran not wanting to put forth films like “It Was Just an Accident” as their official submission (the film was ultimately selected by France since the project was a co-production).
“There has to be a new solution to resolve this problem and take it out of the hands of the states,” Panahi says.
As international directors continue to break into the conversation, bolder, more genre-bending films are being considered — case in point, Park and his darkly hilarious class satire “No Other Choice.” The auteur recognizes the boom that Korean cinema has enjoyed in the years since 2019’s “Parasite,” for which director Bong Joon Ho won a directing Oscar, an original screenplay Oscar and the film won best picture. “But ever since the pandemic, the [Korean] audience hasn’t returned to the theater, so things are going in a more different and darker direction,” Park says. “I think the situation is more serious in Korea compared to other countries.”
With former president Yoon Suk Yeol cutting crucial government funds for film and the arts, Korean filmmakers have struggled since 2022. “Our new government has promised to provide more funding for filmmakers, but we will have to wait and see how practically helpful those decisions will actually be. We’re all trying to still stay hopeful,” Park says.
Countries like Brazil have also seen fluctuating support from their government depending on the administration, but under current president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, public funding has returned. “Brazil has always been very supportive because we have the public funding system. And public funding for the arts is actually part of the Brazilian constitution,” says Filho.
Filho’s profile was raised by his best director prize at Cannes earlier this year, and he can also thank the high profile of Brazilian cinema that Walter Salles’ Oscar-winning “I’m Still Here” built during awards season last year. (That film was also nominated in the lead acting categories, itself rather rare.)
Palestinian filmmakers often turn to co-productions for financial support. Director Jacir’s sweeping historical epic “Palestine 36,” which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, was a co-production that included France and the U.K.
“Sometimes they could be really unusual combinations, but it’s how we manage to make our films that way. The second [route] is the financiers who want to see these stories. And mostly it’s from the Palestinian community that feels these stories are missing,” says Jacir, who has had two films represent Palestine at the Oscars before.
Seasoned filmmakers like Jacir have also backed film funds and hired local crews with the hopes of supporting new generations of Palestinian directors: “I want people who are working from the heart. That’s more important to me than the experience, because it’s not easy to make films here. And so you have to think about what you are doing. You have to really believe in it.”
“The Voice of Hind Rajab,” which tells the harrowing true story of a young Palestinian girl’s death, was one of just a few strong international contenders to premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it reportedly received the longest standing ovation in the festival’s history. For director Hania, a previous Oscar nominee for “Four Daughters,” that provided a huge platform during fall festival season: “It was the movie of Venice [that] everybody was talking about it, so the beginning was beyond my expectation.”She continues: “The voices from Palestine and from the Arab region in general have been silenced for a long time, and until now, it’s not easy to get distributed, and we have to fight twice [as hard] to show our movies. Movies from Palestine exist, they have quite a long history, but they don’t reach the U.S.”
Additionally, regional festivals have played a part in international directors receiving more recognition, as distributors like Neon make it a priority to include them on press tours. Of those festivals, the Middleburg Film Festival in Virginia has become a pivotal stop. Middleburg’s executive director Susan Koch says: “It always adds so much to have the director there and to be able to interact with the audience, and for people to hear directly from the people involved with the film. We’ve made that a real priority.”
Panahi attended Middleburg to accept this year’s Impact Award. “The distributors told me that we are going to these little towns, to these little festivals, and I listened. I went anywhere and everywhere that they wanted me to go,” Panahi says. “Sometimes we fly to places and we’re not even there for 24 hours. It’s extremely grueling, but I know that if I show any signs of exhaustion, it’s going to affect others.”
With this year’s competitive best director race potentially featuring both new and returning Oscar nominees, many contenders are themselves Academy voters who have been invited in recent years. That means they’ve seen the global changes first-hand.
“I do feel that the human landscape of Academy members has changed, and I think it makes complete sense,” Filho says. “I’m well received in the U.S., my films get recognition and good coverage in the press and U.S. distribution. And I still have to remember that, as much as I’m part of this, it’s still a system that was set up, originally, to recognize U.S. films. So, in one way, I feel foreign, but in another way I feel very much welcome into the mix.”