Abortion legal drama Belén shortlisted for Oscars

Dolores Fonzi’s abortion drama Belén has made the Oscars’ shortlist in the International Feature Film category.  Fonzi’s second film, which is Argentina’s Oscar submission, is one of the 15 to be preselected by the Academy Awards on Tuesday. It was the second Latin American entry, together with Brazil’s The Secret Agent, directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho. Other preselected films include some of this year’s festival highlights, including Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident (France), winner of the Golden Palm in Cannes; Olivier Laxe’s Sirât (Spain), which picked up the Jury Prize in the same festival; and Kaouther Ben Hania’s The Voice of Hind Rajab (Tunisia), winner of the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival.  The international feature film category drew 86 eligible submissions from countries or regions around the world. The Academy defines an international feature film as a feature-length picture (more than 40 minutes long) produced outside the U.S. with a predominantly non-English dialogue track. The five finalists will be announced together with the rest of the nominations on January 22, 2026. The last time an Argentine film was nominated for an Oscar in that category was in 2023, when Santiago Mitre’s Argentina, 1985 — a courtroom drama based on Argentina’s Trial of the Juntas — lost against Germany’s All Quiet in the Western Front. Produced by K&S Films (The Eternaut) and distributed by Amazon MGM, Belén is based on the true story of a landmark case for the feminist movement fighting for women’s rights and against gender-based violence.  In 2014, a young woman in Tucumán went to an emergency room seeking treatment for intense abdominal pain from a miscarriage she wasn’t even aware she was having. Given that abortion in Argentina was illegal at the time, she was arrested and later convicted of first-degree murder. The Tucumán Supreme Court finally absolved the 27-year-old after she spent two years in pre-trial detention. She received the support of dozens of human rights organizations, including Amnesty International and the UN’s Human Rights Committee. Belén was released in theaters in Argentina on September 18, selling more than 25,000 tickets in its first week. The film was shown at the San Sebastian Film Festival, where actress Camila Plaate won the Silver Shell for best supporting role. It is currently available for streaming on Amazon’s Prime Video.