Oscars international feature race 2026 guide: the contenders from Africa and the Middle East

Africa

There is good and bad news for Africa’s international feature Oscar representation. The continent combines a first-time entrant, in island nation Madagascar, with countries of established cinema pedigree, such as Tunisia and Egypt. Less positive is the number of African entrants dropping for the second successive year, from nine to just six. Nigeria, which produces more than a thousand films a year through its Nollywood industry, is among those missing.

Mati Diop’s Senegalese documentary Dahomey was the only African title to make last year’s 15-film Oscar shortlist. No Black director has ever won the Academy’s international award, while African countries have won on only three occasions, most recently in 2006 with South Africa’s Tsotsi.

Kaouther Ben Hania’s Tunisian entry The Voice Of Hind Rajab is one of the most talked-about titles of the current awards season. Based on real events from January 2024, the docu­drama depicts the response of Palestinian Red Crescent aid workers to calls from Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl trapped in a car under fire from Israeli forces. High-profile figures boarded the film as executive producers before its Venice launch, including Brad Pitt, Joaquin Phoenix, Rooney Mara and two previous winners of the international feature Oscar — Alfonso Cuaron (Roma, 2019) and Jonathan Glazer (The Zone Of Interest, 2024). After an emotional press conference and premiere on the Lido, The Voice Of Hind Rajab picked up the Silver Lion grand jury prize, and has since won the audience award at San Sebastian.

This is Ben Hania’s fourth time representing Tunisia. The Man Who Sold His Skin became the country’s first Oscar nominee in 2021, in this category; and Four Daughters made the shortlist of 15 for 2024, as well as being nominated in best documentary. Willa, one of the film’s production companies, took on US rights for a December release; Altitude is hand­ling distribution in the UK and Ireland and a push towards Bafta’s film not in English language category.

Morocco also recalls a familiar face: actress and filmmaker Maryam Touzani first represented her country with 2020 entry Adam, before The Blue Caftan made the 2023 awards shortlist. She returns with her first Spanish-­language film Calle Málaga, about a woman fighting to keep her childhood house in Morocco after her daughter decides to sell. Winner of the Spotlight audience award at Venice in September, the film is co-written by Touzani and regular collaborator Nabil Ayouch, who himself has directed six of Morocco’s 20 previous category entries.

Unearthing gems

Luck Razanajaona’s Disco Afrika: A Malagasy Story is the first entry for Madagascar. The film debuted at Marrakech Film Festival in November 2023, before a European premiere in Berlin’s Generation 14plus strand. Razanajoana’s full-length debut is one of a small number of features made in the country each year, and follows a 20-year-old man who returns from Madagascar’s sapphire mines to his hometown, only to find rampant corruption.

Uganda makes only its second entry to the award with Hassan Mageye’s Kimote, following Morris Mugisha’s 2023 submission Tembele. With dialogue in the Luganda language spoken by more than 5 million people in Uganda, Kimote sees a young craftsman deny his father’s wishes to abandon their ancestral trade, as he seeks to transform the barkcloth material they make into a symbol of cultural pride.

Actor Jamie Foxx is a producer of Sarah Goher’s feature debut Happy Birthday through his Foxxhole Productions. The Egyptian entry explores classism in modern-day Cairo through the story of an eight-year-old maid who attempts to ensure her best friend — the daughter of the family for whom she works — gets a birthday party. It is written by wife-and-husband team Goher and Mohamed Diab, who created Marvel series Moon Knight, while Diab wrote and directed 2017 Egyptian Oscar entry Clash. Happy Birthday is aiming to become Egypt’s first winner, nomination or even shortlist placement after 38 unsuccessful efforts.

The 2006 victory for Tsotsi remains South Africa’s Oscar peak, although Darrell Roodt’s Yesterday was nominated the previous year. The latest entry is Imran Hamdulay’s Afrikaans and English-­language crime drama The Heart Is A Muscle, which follows the chain of events when a five-year-old boy goes missing at a barbecue.

Middle East

Filmmakers from the Levant and surrounding countries have not been dissuaded by ongoing regional conflicts, with entries from the Middle East up by one from last year to eight. At time of writing, there is a fragile ceasefire in the Israel-­Hamas conflict in Gaza; that war remains a topic of discussion across the film industry, from festivals to awards ceremonies, and will likely still be in focus come the Oscars cere­mony on March 15.

Palestine has called on one of its most prominent filmmakers — Annemarie Jacir, director of three previous entries for the territory, most recently Wajib in 2018. Her latest Palestine 36 boasts international connections, with local talents Hiam Abbass and Kamel El Basha joined by UK/Irish stars Jeremy Irons, Liam Cunningham, Billy Howle and Robert Aramayo, in a depiction of the 1936-39 Arab revolt against British rule in Palestine. Its 2023 shoot was moved from Palestine to Jordan due to the Israel-­Hamas war, and the completed film launched at this year’s Toronto before festival berths in London, Rome and Tokyo. Hany Abu-Assad scored two Oscar nominations for Palestine: Paradise Now in 2006 and Omar in 2014.

Shai Carmeli-Pollak’s The Sea became the Israeli entry through winning best film — plus four other prizes — at the country’s Ophir Awards in September, at a ceremony overshadowed by the military campaign in Gaza. It tells the story of a Palestinian boy embarking on a dangerous journey to the Tel Aviv coast. Israel’s culture minister Miki Zohar criticised The Sea’s Ophir success as a “slap in the face of Israeli citizens”, and said the ceremony will no longer be taxpayer-funded from 2026 onwards. Israel has never won the international feature prize, with 10 nominations from 57 entries, most recently for Joseph Cedar’s Footnote in 2012.

The number of exiled or expatriated Iranian filmmakers and the country’s autocratic regime mean the most high-profile Iranian films often are not selected as the country’s Oscar entry. Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or winner It Was Just An Accident is representing France, while Iran has submitted Ali Zarnegar’s feature debut Cause Of Death: Unknown, a thriller following seven passengers crossing the country’s Lut desert in a van. Asghar Farhadi won this award twice for Iran, for A Separation in 2012 and The Salesman in 2017, with both features also nominated for the film not in the English language Bafta.

Hasan Hadi’s Iraqi entry The President’s Cake won the Camera d’Or for best first feature at Cannes this year, after launching in Directors’ Fortnight, where it also took the people’s choice award. Iraq-born, New York-based Hadi is a Sundance Institute screen­writing and directing fellow. His debut feature follows a nine-year-old girl selected to bake Saddam Hussein’s birthday cake, leading to an unorthodox road trip with her grandmother.

Return to the fray

Having not entered last year, Saudi Arabia is back with Hijra, showing the bonds formed by different generations of Saudi women during a desert journey to Mecca. It is the second entry for Shahad Ameen after 2021’s Scales, and launched in this year’s Venice Spotlight strand.

After last year’s entry My Sweet Land was withdrawn due to “diplomatic pressures”, according to the country’s Royal Film Commission, Jordan has returned with All That’s Left Of You, a drama tracing the history of a Palestinian family over several decades. It is the third feature of US-Palestinian actress and director Cherien Dabis, who also stars in this year’s Swedish entry Eagles Of The Republic.

Also taking in a relationship over many years is Cyril Aris’s Lebanese submission A Sad And Beautiful World, about the bond between childhood sweethearts as they consider starting a family in war-torn Lebanon. A premiere in Venice’s Giornate degli Autori sidebar was followed by Hamburg, London and Sao Paulo festival screenings. From 20 entries, Lebanon’s two Oscar nominations came in successive years, for Ziad Doueiri’s The Insult in 2018 and Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum in 2019.

Turkey’s entry One Of Those Days When Hemme Dies has been on a festival tour since debuting in Venice Horizons in 2024, with stops at Sao Paulo, Stockholm, Marrakech, Singapore, Chennai, Moscow and Sydney, among others. Murat Firatoglu’s debut is a crime thriller following a frustrated tomato-field worker who decides to kill his foreman. The country’s 33rd entry is looking to become its first nominee or winner.

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