Equally strong in the Best Picture race are two American films, Into The Wild and No Country For Old Men. The former, another directorial effort from Sean Penn, is a poignant true story of a young man (Emile Hirsch) who abandons his belongings, before embarking on a north-bound trek to live in the Alaskan wilderness.

Boasting a cast of former Oscar winners William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden, Into The Wild is a life-affirming tale guaranteed to leave no dry eye in the theater by the time the final credits roll.

No Country For Old Men, on the other hand, is a heart-pounding thriller from the Coen brothers about a Texan man (Josh Brolin) on the run with a caseload of drug money, while being chased by the baffled local sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) and an assassin (Javier Bardem) wielding a most peculiar murder weapon. This film has been hailed by critics as the best work from Ethan and Joel Coen since releasing their magnum opus, Fargo, more than a decade ago.

In the acting categories, no performance has received more accolades this year than that of Marion Cottilard's in La Vie En Rose. A relative unknown in Hollywood, despite having starred in big studio films like Tim Burton's Big Fish and Ridley Scott's A Good Year, Cottilard delivers a career-making performance as Edith Piaf.

Her nuanced turn is as spellbinding as the troubled French chanteuse herself, successfully portraying Piaf at various ages, from a 20-year-old street performer to a haggard morphine-dependent fortysomething in her deathbed. Lack of a Best Actress nomination would surely mean a major travesty on the Academy's part.

Another performance worth noting is Angelina Jolie's glammed-down role as Mariane Pearl, the widow of a Wall Street Journal bureau chief who was murdered by Pakistani religious fundamentalists, in A Mighty Heart. The film, from renowned British director Michael Winterbottom, recounts Pearl's struggle to cope with her devastating loss while heavily pregnant.

Critics were unanimous in praising Jolie's return to form since following her Oscar-winning breakthrough, Girl, Interrupted, with shallow, maintstream roles, not to mention her headline-grabbing antics as regular tabloid fodder.

Apart from these Hollywood fare, JiFFest will also be screening a few Best Foreign Language Film contenders in the 2008 Oscars, namely from Romania, Japan, Switzerland, Brazil and France.

Fresh off its Palme d'or-win at Cannes Film Festival, Romania's entry 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days tells of two female students in the country's final days of Communism who wish to get an illegal abortion when one of them falls pregnant (the title alludes to how long the girl has been pregnant). Complications arise when the doctor performing the deed in question refuses to be paid with money.

For lighter comedic fare, Hula Girls is a crowd-pleasing Japanese box office hit about a mining town's womensfolk forming a hula dance troupe when the mines are shut down to make way for a Hawaiian theme park. A taboo undertaking in rural Japan, the women of the troupe are forced to deal with the naysaying of the other villagers before ultimately finding their own personal freedom.

The theme of a young child's coming of age is commonly shared by three entries from Switzerland, Brazil and France.

Switzerland's Vitus is about a child musical prodigy who abruptly decides to stop developing his skills and lead a normal childhood, while The Year My Parents Went On Vacation is a young Brazilian boy's tale of being sent to live with his grandfather and relishing his dream of Brazil winning the World Cup.

France's Persepolis, also the festival's opening film, is an animated adaptation of Marjane Satrapi's autobiographical graphic novel. Chronicling Satrapi's years growing up in war-torn Iran and facing loneliness while studying in Europe, Persepolis caused quite a stir recently after being strongly protested by the Iranian Embassy in Thailand, causing its subsequent withdrawal from Bangkok International Film Festival.

With such a wide array of exceptional features in its line-up this year, it would be wise to reserve the week between 7 and 16 December solely for a celluloid marathon at the JiFFest. Who knows, come February next year, one of them might snag the much-coveted golden statuette and serendipitously cause a major upset.

The 9th annual Jakarta International Film Festival (JiFFest) runs from 7-16 December 2007 at various venues around Jakarta. For screening times and ticketing information, go to www.jiffest.org