Oscar Buzz at the New Hampshire Film Festival

Film fans know there is really no bad time of year to talk Oscar buzz. This month, we’re fueling the conversation by screening at least three films that are generating statue scuttlebutt.

This year’s festival not only boasts the largest selection of world and U.S. premieres our event has ever seen (Chicken, Boy Upside Down, Brew Hampshire and more), but also an impressive lineup of parties, awards presentations and speaker panels.

We’re thrilled for these films to be a part of our 15th year!

Three-time Oscar nominee Charlie Kaufman of Being John Malkovich fame is earning critical acclaim for what is being described as his first foray into stop-motion animation. Anomalisa, described as the story of a man who is “crippled by the mundanity of life,” captured the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice Film Festival.

Cartel Land, Matthew Heineman’s searing journalistic chronicle about Mexican citizens who rise up against a violent drug cartel, is being talked up in the race for Best Documentary.

The Second Mother, a Brazilian entry that is considered a frontrunner for Best Foreign Language Film, explores unspoken class barriers that are thrown into disarray when the estranged daughter of a hard-working live-in housekeeper suddenly appears.

Also keep a wary eye out for The Witch, which is conjuring considerable supernatural buzz with its story of a devout Christian family bedeviled by an evil presence in 1630s-era New England. Not scheduled for official release until next year, it premiered at Sundance with reports of terrified filmgoers fleeing the theater, prompting Esquire to call it “already one of 2016’s scariest movies.”

These films aren’t the only ones you want to be sure to catch this weekend—see the full NHFF schedule here!