Chris Davison
AFI FEST Daily News

Director Rolf De Heer, director Szabolcs Hajdu, director Zoltan Miklos Hajdu and director Florian Henkel von Donnersmarck speak during the Foreign Oscar Contenders Panel at the American Film Market, November 5. (Photo by Thos Robinson/Getty Images)

As he accepted the Academy Award for Foreign Language Film, TSOTSI director and AFI FEST 2005 filmmaker Gavin Hood said, "We may have foreign language films, but our stories are the same as your stories.

"They're about the human heart and emotion."

Judging by a panel discussion at this year's American Film Market, the same is undeniably true in 2006.

The four directors on the AFM panel November 5 were Rachid Bouchareb (DAYS OF GLORY), Rolf De Heer (TEN CANOES), Florian Henkel von Donnersmarck (THE LIVES OF OTHERS) and Szabolcs Hajdu (WHITE PALMS).

These are the official Academy Awards submissions from, respectively, Algeria, Australia, Germany and Hungary.

All four screen at AFI FEST 2006 presented by Audi.

DAYS OF GLORY (Algeria) is set during World War II. It relates the story of a group of African soldiers who join the French in their fight against Nazi occupation. As they fight alongside their colonial brethren they face racism, both personal and institutional, from the French army.

Speaking through a translator, director Bouchareb related that some of the injustice visited upon African veterans has since been undone.

"The impact of this film was very real," Bouchareb explained. "As a result of it their pensions were changed and made equal to those of French veterans."

TEN CANOES (Australia) employs the tools of modern film to extend and illuminate an Aboriginal oral tradition that stretches back hundreds of centuries.

The story takes place in the mythical past and also represents a modern first, being the first film shot entirely in Aboriginal language.

Director de Heer pointed out that his film has done very well among the general white population in Australia.

"It's really the first guilt-free film of its type," he said. Viewers can "change their perception of who these people are."

THE LIVES OF OTHERS (Germany) goes behind the Berlin Wall, to East Germany in 1984.

A loyal Stasi secret police officer is assigned to gather evidence against a playwright, and finds himself immersed in a life of free thought and forbidden speech.

Director von Donnersmarck noted that most films done about the Stasi have been comedies. "There was too much tension about that subject in Germany," he explained, and before a serious, in-depth film could be done, "people felt that they had to laugh at it."

WHITE PALMS (Hungary) is the story of a traumatized young gymnast who overcomes great adversity in order to pursue his passion for sport.

East meets West when the young athlete moves to Canada and becomes a coach, only to find himself perpetuating many of the abuses from his past, until a chance for redemption begins to take shape.

Speaking through a translator, director Hajdu delighted the crowd by pointing out that his translator is also his brother Zoltan, and that the film is based on Zoltan's life experiences.

As a follow-up to the film, the director revealed Zoltan's fate: He now lives in Las Vegas and performs with Cirque du Soleil.

In the third year of a strategic partnership, AFM and AFI FEST represent North America's largest gathering of film professionals, and the continent's only concurrent film market and festival. AFM is November 1-8, 2006, in Santa Monica. AFI FEST is November 1-12, 2006, in Hollywood.