International Oscar Race: Switzerland Selects Rural Coming of Age Drama ‘Thunder’
variety.comJohn Bleasdale Guest Contributor Switzerland has selected Carmen Jaquier’s standout first feature “Thunder” as its submission for the best international feature film category of the Academy Awards.
The choice was announced Friday at a press conference held at the Locarno Film Festival. Writer-director Jacquier’s feature debut is a coming-of-age film set in 1900 against a glorious mountainous landscape and the conservatism of rural Switzerland.
It turns on a teenage girl (Lilith Grasmug) who is about to take her vows at the nunnery but is forced to return home when her elder sister dies in mysterious circumstances.
Obliged to abandon her life, she must help with the arduous work on her family farm. She finds herself investigating her sister’s death and testing her own freedoms against the constraints of her family and the village community.
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