Italy Selects 'The Spiral' for 2027 Oscars Race — SkimNews
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- ANICA appointed a commission of experts that selected "The Spiral" as Italy's entry for the 2027 best international feature film Oscar, chosen from a 21-strong list of films theatrically released in Italy between Oct. 1, 2025 and Sept. 30, 2026.
- "The Spiral" premiered in competition at the Venice Film Festival earlier this month and stars Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as a demonic figure called The Stranger who entices Jasmine Trinca's young mother into a Faustian pact.
- The film's plot centers on a mother-daughter relationship that unravels after a woman named Anna reveals she made a pact with The Stranger 20 years earlier to save daughter Alice's leg — a pact that triggered a "domino effect of terrible events."
- The competing Venice entries also on Italy's shortlist included Nanni Moretti's "It Will Happen Tonight" and Marco Bechis's "Back to Buenos Aires."
- Italy last won the best international feature film Oscar in 2014 with Paolo Sorrentino's "The Great Beauty," a 13-year gap the new submission hopes to close.
- The Academy's shortlist will be announced Dec. 15, with final nominations on Jan. 21 and the 99th Academy Awards ceremony on March 14 in Los Angeles.
Why it matters: Italy's selection process narrows its annual cinematic output to one submission for a category it last won 13 years ago, making each pick a high-stakes bet on international visibility. The Venice competition pedigree of "The Spiral" — and its Faustian thriller hook — gives ANICA's commission a prestige-validated choice heading into the December shortlist window.
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