Oscars 2024: ‘Zone of Interest’ becomes first British movie to win ‘Best International Feature Film
For the first time in the history of the Oscars, a British movie has been named the winner of the ‘Best International Feature Film’ category, with Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest breaking new ground.
The adaptation of Martin Amis’ novel of the same name was also shortlisted for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’ but lost out to Cord Jefferson’s American Fiction, and is also in the running for three other prizes, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’.
Despite being a hotbed for cinema since the advent of the moving image and a country that’s been involved in some of the biggest and most acclaimed productions in history in one way or another, the United Kingdom has never been a ‘Best International Feature’-winning country until now.
In fact, you’d have to go all the way back to 1999’s Solomon & Gaenor to find the last time Britain was even nominated for the statue through the Welsh-language movie, which is remarkable considering the nation’s status as a powerhouse of the medium.
A searing indictment on the banality and mundanity of evil, Glazer’s latest feature finds Nazi commandant Rudolf Höss and his family building a dream life for themselves in an idyllic home set in the countryside, albeit one set within very close proximity to Auschwitz.
In our three-and-a-half-star review, Far Out wrote: “The Zone of Interest is a painful examination of the way Nazi families affectlessly ignored the atrocities that were going on around them, in the case of the Hösses, within earshot of the screams and cries that penetrated the Auschwitz air through day and night. There’s almost always a constant rumble of gunfire and hum of machinery and gas chamber workings to feign obliviousness underneath the Höss household, but Glazer keeps the visual barbarity of the camp persistently out of view”.
For the first time in 25 years, the UK had itself a ‘Best International Feature Film’ nominee, and for the very first time, it’s ended up with a winner, too.
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