Oscar 2009: Best Foreign-Language Film Submissions

Pressured by her husband for a $25,000 prize, Magaly enters a TV contest impersonating Marilyn Monroe. As she embodies the iconic blonde, she experiences an identity crisis mirroring Monroe's troubled life.

A documentary shot over the course of five years telling five stories in the run-up to the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics: the construction of the Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium, Gold medal hopeful & Olympic hurdler Liu Xiang, the selection of the Chinese women's gymnastics team, the training of the Beijing SWAT team, and the story one of the 4000 families relocated to make room for the Olympic Athlete's Village.

Two American soldiers wounded in the Afghanistan desert stumble across a Russian tank which has a group of Afghanis living inside.

It is 1961 and an Albanian student (Nik Xhelilaj) of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, together with a group of Czech students, is shooting his graduate movie on a motorcycle factory, in the small market-town of Cesky Sternberk, in then Czechoslovakia. Coming from a country that is completely isolated from the rest of Europe, he is fascinated by the lifestyle, society and "erotic exuberance" of the Czech golden youth, yet feeling strong links with his family in his homeland. He falls in love with a married woman (Anna Geislerová), the wife of a police superintendent (Paolo Buglioni) and is insecure about his future.

Mounir Mekbek lives with his family in a small village in the heart of the Algerian countryside. Very proud and sure of himself, he has only one dream- to finally be appreciated by his fellow villagers. Screwing up his carefully maintained image is his headstrong, narcoleptic sister Rym who falls asleep anywhere and whom the village is convinced will end up a spinster. One evening, Mounir returns from town drunk and announces that he's found a suitor for his sister. The fake story snowballs and snowballs until the suitor morphs into a rich, blonde Australian. The village begins preparing for the wedding in earnest - but without a bridegroom in sight.

An incarcerated woman struggles to raise her son from prison.

Ex-con Alex plans to flee to the South with his girl after a robbery. But something terrible happens and revenge seems inevitable.

Mr. Rafiq is given an option to develop the ancestral property by a privet developer agent. The house carries the style of typical historic buildings of old Dhaka; which are being pushed aside by urban modernization. With the decision hanging, Ruba, his daughter, leaves her husband in the US and returns to Dhaka. The cause being her husband's excessive misbehave. Ruba tries to find peace in her memory soaked old home but could not as the decision to reconstruct the property is discussed and debated over and over again. Another character, Soleman, obedient servant of Mr. Rafiq becomes irritating to Ruba since he has a rivalry with the local power holders. As Ruba seeks her memories in the home, she occasionally watches a man on a neighboring flat. The man notices this. With the man's efforts they finally get to be friends. But the orthodox mindset of the father desperately looks for ways to stop the developing relationship or perhaps a new hope for Ruba. The story ends with a pathetic turn of events; just like the title AHA!; (what a pity!) exemplifying the enigmatic sorrow wrapped with the old infrastructure of old Dhaka even today.

Yvan finds a burglar in his house. He doesn't call the police and decides to give the young man a lift home to his parents.

Post traumatic life of the Bosnian Muslim widows and daughters after their husbands and fathers were murdered by Bosnian Serb Army. Plot is set in post war eastern Bosnian village near town of Zvornik.

A chronicle of a real-life bus hijacking in Rio de Janeiro that occurred on June 12, 2000.

Moth is freed on parole after spending time in prison on wrongful conviction of murder. Jailed shortly before the Bulgarian communist coup of 1944, he now finds himself in a new and alien world - the totalitarian Sofia of the 60s. His first night of freedom draws the map of a diabolical city full of decaying neighborhoods, gloomy streets and a bizarre parade of characters.

In 1952, an Inuit hunter named Tivii with tuberculosis leaves his northern home and family to go recuperate at a sanatorium in Quebec City. Uprooted, far from his loved ones, unable to speak French and faced with a completely alien world, he becomes despondent. When he refuses to eat and expresses a wish to die, his nurse, Carole, comes to the realization that Tivii's illness is not the most serious threat to his well-being. She arranges to have a young orphan, Kaki, transferred to the institution. The boy is also sick, but has experience with both worlds and speaks both languages. By sharing his culture with Kaki and opening it up to others, Tivii rediscovers his pride and energy. Ultimately he also rediscovers hope through a plan to adopt Kaki, bring him home and make him part of his family.

A man is obsessed with John Travolta's disco dancing character from Saturday Night Fever (1977).

In the crime world of Colombia, there is an unwritten code. When Víctor and Eusebio, two hoods who bungle a shake-down job, break that code, they unwittingly sign their own death sentence.

Ivan, a 36-year old ex-rock singer and a disillusioned war veteran who lost both legs in the recent Croatian Homeland War, discovers a dark family secret, which fundamentally changes his life he now wants to end.

A film that examines the relationships between lives on both sides of the proscenium, Petr Zelenka's Karamazovi finds a Prague-based theatrical ensemble arriving in Krakow, Poland - where its members prepare to mount a stage production of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov.

The daughter of a Jehovah's Witness is forced to choose between religion and love when she falls for someone outside her faith.

'El Gezira' is a film about a community of Upper Egypt residents living in El Gezira (the Island). They have their own set of rules, ethics and traditions. They also plant drugs and buy arms from Sudan. The officer in charge of the region turns a blind eye to these happenings, and in the beginning, the government takes no heed of the Island. At the start of the film, we witness the death of the old 'Kabir el Gezira' (the island's ruler), leaving the land to his son Mansour. The first half follows Mansour as he takes control of his land and must deal with a band of other drug lords who are greedy to take control of the island. The second half of the film deals with the political conflict. It follows the government's side of things (which finally decides to take action) at the same time as Mansour's side as the two react to each other's threats and the conflict escalates. 'El Gezira' is a multi-genre picture. It is a thematic film on Egyptian politics, but also a drama, romance, action and thriller.

A 17-year-old boy becomes a drug dealer and the decision that draws him into causes turbulent events he can't control.

A boy is sent to Saari, an isolated island and home to a home for troubled boys, where he falls in love with the daughter of the school's superintendent.

Teacher and novelist François Bégaudeau plays a version of himself as he negotiates a year with his racially mixed students from a tough Parisian neighborhood.

A look at Germany's terrorist group, The Red Army Faction (RAF), which organized bombings, robberies, kidnappings, and assassinations in the late 1960s and '70s.