Italian cinema doesn’t hold Familia at the Oscars

And so Family it is out of the group of the fifteen best non-English language films that will compete for the Oscar. The bad news though is that it’s not news. Let’s be honest: did anyone believe it?

It will be said, and it is true, that up Family there hasn’t been a campaign worthy of the name, and no real investment has been made in American promotion. But let’s face it frankly: with the level of non-English language films there was this year, not even there grazia of Sorrentino (who in fact previously withdrew from the race) would have prevailed.

On the other hand, in the last ten years, how many times have we managed to overcome the Pillars of Hercules on the shortlist and then arrive in the final five? Few. In 2022 with It was the hand of God by Paolo Sorrentino, in 2024 with I captain by Matteo Garrone, and in 2025 with Vermilion by Maura Delpero: a swallow in a sunless spring, for an Italy cinematographer small and fragile.

We console ourselves with Playing God by Matteo Burani ed Eiru by Giovanna Ferrari, entered the Oscar shortlist for Best Animated Short Film.

And then?

Sorrento. And Garrone. We are still there. Seventeen years after the glorious double in the Cannes palmarès (with Il Divo and Gomorrah), when our country proudly raised its head in the presence of great international cinema, more hopeful than convinced of having found the two new courageous captains of our beautiful cinema to come, we are here still talking about them.

We just have to cry or rely on Paolo and Matteo, evangelists of a tricolor cinema without good news, the only two global saints of a cinema that is despite itself sovereignist (once it would have been called provincial). Other than children of the stars, without them we are nobody’s children.

It’s not that there is a lack of “good directors”: on Cinematografo we have identified around twenty to keep an eye on, all young. But it’s a system problem. Of cultural policy, of industrial strategies. We have neither an average export cinema nor an auteur cinema strong enough to climb international festivals and awards. From facesof names and adjectives, capable of conveying an idea of ​​Italian cinema: recognisable, spendable. After all, why be surprised? Italian cinema is not a UFO that crashed into the country’s system: it is its mirror. Do we perhaps have better politics, a bolder culture, a more honest discernment? We curled up on ourselves: not stretched out, but folded up; not distracted elsewhere, simply unable to look far away. No horizons, no future. We stayed in our home, out of survival instinct.

Let’s face it: the decline of Italian cinema is all too similar to the Italian decline. If not completely – we still have tennis and table tennis, two excellences that export themselves – at least to a large extent. It is a decline reminiscent of that of the other great withered national totem, football. Perhaps it precedes it and, upon closer inspection, it could last longer. Cinema and football, “C” aside, have long shared the same magic: making us proud of ourselves. Loved at home, respected abroad. They were not just victories, but the expression of a country that recognized an essential part of itself, to be protected and exhibited.

Even our critics put their own spin on it. In the 1950s i Cinema notebooks they saved French cinema (and perhaps not only that) by beating hard – metaphorically speaking – the dad’s cinema. Here, perhaps in our own small way, we should start to pamper ourselves less and push our cinema as mothers, brothers and sisters more. Meanness is better than flattery. Just because we tell ourselves that everything is fine, not everything will be fine: at most, it will continue like this.

This is the shortlist of the 15 for Best International Film:
Argentina, Belén
Brazil, The secret agent
France, A simple accident
Germania, The sound of falling
India, Homebound
Iraq, The president’s cake
Japan, That’s it
Jordan, All that’s left of you
Norway, Sentimental Value
Palestine, Palestine 36
South Korea, No Other Choice – There is no other choice
Spain, Sirât
Swiss, The last round
Taiwan, My family in Taipei
Tunisia, The voice of Hind Rajab