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AFI Fest isn’t thought of as an acquisition festival, as most of its offerings are either world premieres about to enter awards season or high-profile selections from Cannes and Venice. Explore the program a bit, however, and you’ll discover any number of under-the-radar titles that have yet to find a home. That’s unsurprising, given how crowded the fall festival season has been, but dealmakers should seek out these worthy titles before it’s too late.

“Amateurs”

Gabriela Pichler’s debut as writer-director, the youth-in-revolt dramedy “Eat Sleep Die,” never got a theatrical release. That was a shame, and it’d be just as much of a disappointment if her follow-up met the same fate. Working from an appropriately zany premise — a small Swedish town attempts to woo a German superstore company into opening a new location via a promotional video — Pichler delivers clever scenarios and a surprising...

The last festival on the fall calendar, AFI Fest, always offers a few late-breaking possible Oscar contenders — including opener “On the Basis of Sex” and closer “Mary, Queen of Scots” — as well as a strong World Cinema line-up packed with foreign-language Oscar submissions.

This year is no exception: Seven possible Best Foreign Language Film Oscar contenders are in the lineup of 28 titles from 27 countries, including Cannes prize-winners “Capernaum”, “Shoplifters” (Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, Magnolia), and “Dogman” (Italy’s Matteo Garrone, Magnolia), along with Cannes entry “The Wild Pear Tree”, Karlovy Vary Festival winner “I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History as Barbarians” (Romania’s Radu Jude), and two Tiff titles from Spc, “Never Look Away” (Germany’s Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) and “Sunset” (Hungary’s “Son of Saul” Oscar-winner László Nemes).

Also in the lineup are several strong festival titles not submitted by their countries for the Oscars,...

The last festival on the fall calendar, AFI Fest, always offers a few late-breaking possible Oscar contenders — including opener “On the Basis of Sex” and closer “Mary, Queen of Scots” — as well as a strong World Cinema line-up packed with foreign-language Oscar submissions.

This year is no exception: Seven possible Best Foreign Language Film Oscar contenders are in the lineup of 28 titles from 27 countries, including Cannes prize-winners “Capernaum”, “Shoplifters” (Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda, Magnolia), and “Dogman” (Italy’s Matteo Garrone, Magnolia), along with Cannes entry “The Wild Pear Tree”, Karlovy Vary Festival winner “I Do Not Care If We Go Down In History as Barbarians” (Romania’s Radu Jude), and two Tiff titles from Spc, “Never Look Away” (Germany’s Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck) and “Sunset” (Hungary’s “Son of Saul” Oscar-winner László Nemes).

Also in the lineup are several strong festival titles not submitted by their countries for the Oscars,...

AFI Fest’s World Cinema section unveiled Tuesday includes seven films that have been officially submitted for the Foreign Language Film Oscar, from Nadine Labaki’s Capernaum and Matteo Garrone’s Dogman to Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s Never Look Away and the Cannes Palme d’Or-winning Shoplifters by Hirokazu Kore-eda. Directors in the slate include Jafar Panahi, Jia Zhang-ke, Hong Sang-soo, Olivier Assayas, Carlos Reygadas, László Nemes and Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

The lineup includes 28 titles from 27 countries. The fest runs November 8-15 and opens with the Ruth Bader Ginsburg biopic On the Basis of Sex and closes with Josie Rourke’s Mary Queen of Scots. In the mix too are a host of gala presentations featuring Bird Box, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Widows, Green Book and Destroyer. The latter pic will be screened as part of a tribute to its star Nicole Kidman.

Here’s the full World...

Honorees to include Asghar Farhadi, Mary Harron and Gunnell Lindblom.

The Stockholm International Film Festival has revealed its 2018 programme, with the festival kicking off Nov 7 with the anticipated world premiere of Anna Odell’s X&Y, in competition.

Odell, the Swedish artist and filmmaker who last directed 2013’s award-winning The Reunion, returns starring as a fictionalized version of herself, collaborating with the celebrated actor Mikael Persbrandt to deconstruct themselves. The cast also features Trine Dyrholm, Sofie Gråbøl, Vera Vitali, Shanti Roney, Jens Albinus and Thure Lindhardt. New Europe handles sales.

Stockholm will close Nov 18 with The Favourite by Yorgos Lanthimos, from the Open Zone section.