Canada’s official submission for the Best International Feature Film category at the upcoming Academy Awards will be Nina Roza, the country’s selection committee confirmed on Tuesday. The drama, directed by Geneviève Dulude-De Celles, marks Canada’s bid for Oscar glory with a story that spans continents and decades.
The film, which premiered in April of this year to a perfect score on TMDb, centers on Mihail, a man who left his native Bulgaria three decades ago. When a viral video featuring an eight-year-old Bulgarian artist named Nina captures the attention of a prominent art collector, Mihail is dispatched back to his homeland to appraise the child’s work. The assignment forces him to confront buried memories and unresolved tensions from the life he abandoned.
Galin Stoev leads the cast as Mihail, with Sofia Stanina portraying Nina and her twin Ekatarina Stanina playing the girl’s double. The ensemble also includes Chiara Caselli as Giulia Mancini, Christian Bégin as the Collector, Michelle Tzontchev as Rose, Mart Lachev as Peter, and Nikolay Mutafchiev as Bogdan. The film runs 103 minutes.
For Dulude-De Celles, the selection represents a significant milestone in a career marked by intimate character studies. Her previous work has drawn praise for its nuanced handling of emotional complexity, and Nina Roza appears to continue that trajectory, weaving together themes of displacement, artistic authenticity, and the weight of personal history.
The choice of Nina Roza signals a departure from more conventional Canadian Oscar entries, which in recent years have often skewed toward Quebec-set dramas or internationally co-produced epics. Instead, this selection leans into a quieter, more contemplative narrative that hinges on a single, fraught homecoming. The film’s premise - a middle-aged man returning to a country he fled, tasked with evaluating the raw talent of a child who represents everything he left behind - gives the committee a chance to spotlight a story that feels both deeply local and universally resonant.
Canada’s Oscar track record in the international feature category has been mixed. While the country has earned multiple nominations over the decades, a win has remained elusive since the 2003 ceremony, when Denys Arcand’s The Barbarian Invasions took the prize. Since then, Canadian submissions have ranged from Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies to Xavier Dolan’s Mommy, but none have managed to convert nominations into a golden statuette. With Nina Roza, the committee appears to be betting on a film that eschews spectacle in favor of raw human drama - a gamble that could resonate with Academy voters who prize emotional depth over formal flash.
The film’s April release date places it well within the eligibility window, and its early critical reception suggests it has momentum. The rare perfect rating on TMDb, while not a formal indicator of Academy favor, points to strong audience and critic enthusiasm. Whether that translates to Oscar recognition remains to be seen, but the selection committee’s decision gives Nina Roza a prominent platform on the international stage.
Dulude-De Celles has not yet publicly commented on the selection, but industry observers note that her ability to coax layered performances from a multinational cast - spanning Bulgarian, Italian, and Canadian actors - positions her as a director with a distinctly European sensibility operating within the Canadian system. The casting of Stoev, a respected Bulgarian stage and screen actor, adds a layer of authenticity to the role of Mihail, whose journey back to his roots is the film’s emotional core.
The Academy’s shortlist for the category is expected to be announced later this year, with nominations following in early 2027. Should Nina Roza make the cut, it would mark the first Canadian nomination in the category since 2020’s The Twentieth Century, which failed to advance past the shortlist stage. For now, the film carries the hopes of a Canadian industry that has long punched above its weight in international cinema, even as it struggles to convert that respect into Oscar gold.
As the awards season gears up, the focus will shift to how Nina Roza is received by the broader international community. The film’s themes of exile, art, and reckoning with the past are hardly unique to Canada, which could work in its favor as a universal story. But the Academy has often favored films with overtly political or historical weight, and Nina Roza’s quieter approach may require patient viewers willing to sit with its ambiguities.
For now, Canada’s choice is made. The rest is up to the Academy - and to the lingering question of whether Mihail’s confrontation with his past will leave as deep an impression on voters as it has on early audiences.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
