ROSE by Markus Schleinzer, starring Sandra Hüller, is Austria’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards.Markus Schleinzer’s highly acclaimed drama, started its international festival career at the 76th Berlinale, where Sandra Hüller won the Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance. ROSE is sold all around the globe.
Shortlist announcement: December 15, 2026
Nominations announcement: January 21, 2027
Oscar ceremony: March 14, 2027
It dawned on Rose at an early age that if you want to lead an independent life, with access to education and property, you would do well to be a man – or at least, to wear pants. In the century of the Thirty Years' War, this young woman chooses the path of disguise and has considerable success. As meticulous as a historical novel, as timely as a sharp-eyed look at the present, Markus Schleinzer's ROSE speaks to us of fundamental inequality, of the courage to attain freedom and of the ever-present walls that society erects to exclude those who are different.
Jury statement: The film’s greatest strength lies in its extraordinary artistic coherence: ROSE is a work that feels as if it were cast from a single mold; the poetic black-and-white images, with their clarity, have an almost spellbinding effect and immense visual power. Markus Schleinzer’s outstanding cinematic language creates both irrefutable clarity and deep emotional authenticity. The elliptically told film remains understated without ever losing its intensity.
