Out of nearly 100 entries, the American Film Academy selected On Body and Soul as a finalist for an Oscar in the category of Best Foreign Language Film. Each country could submit one entry from all the films that premiered there between October 1st, 2016 and September 30th, 2017. The Academy then selects their five official nominees, each with a chance to win the Academy Award at the gala held on March 4, 2018 in Los Angeles.
On Body and Soul tells a peculiar love story set in a slaughterhouse, where the two protagonists, Endre and Mária, discover that they share the same intimate dream every night in which they get closer to each other as deer. However, in real life, the pair communicates rather awkwardly. The film marks a major comeback for Ildikó Enyedi, who has not directed a full-length feature since 1989, when she won the Camera d’Or at Cannes for My Twentieth Century.
On Body and Soul won a Golden Bear – the top prize at the Berlin Film Festival – last February, along with an award given by the International Federation of Film Critics, the readers’ jury award of the Berliner Morgenpost, and, a first for a Hungarian movie, the Sydney Film Prize. The film premiered in North America at the Toronto Film Festival last September, while its firstU.S. screening took place on November 12th, 2017 at AFI Fest, the American Film Institute’s annual celebration of international cinema. On Body and Soul will be featured on Netflix in North America, South Africa, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, as well as most of Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.
