And then there were 9…
A record 76 countries submitted films for consideration in the Foreign Language Film Oscar category for the upcoming 86th Academy Awards. That list of 76 (revealed in October) has now been trimmed down to 9 features that will advance to the next round of voting.
Unfortunately, not a single one of the 5 Diaspora films that were part of the original 76 made the cut, and therefore won’t be able to contend for the final list of nominees, which will be announced a month from now.
Those 5 films are:
– GriGris, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun (Chad)
– La Playa DC, Juan Andrés Arango (Colombia)
– Winter of Discontent, Ibrahim El Batout (Egypt)
– Horses of God, Nabil Ayouch (Morocco)
– Four Corners, Ian Gabriel (South Africa)
Per the Academy, Foreign Language Film nominations for 2013 are being determined in two phases:
– The Phase I committee, consisting of several hundred Los Angeles-based Academy members, screened the original submissions between mid-October and December 16. The group’s top six choices, augmented by three additional selections voted by the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee, constitute the shortlist.
– The shortlist will be winnowed down to the five nominees by specially invited committees in New York and Los Angeles. They will spend Friday, January 10, through Sunday, January 12, viewing three films each day and then casting their ballots.
The 86th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 16, 2014, at 5:30 am PT in the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater.
The Oscars will eventually be presented on Sunday, March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center and televised live on the ABC Television Network.
The presentation, produced by Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.
The 9 films that did make the semi-finals list of 9, dominated by European films (which is typical), follow below:
Belgium, “The Broken Circle Breakdown,” Felix van Groeningen, director;
Bosnia and Herzegovina, “An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker,” Danis Tanovic, director;
Cambodia, “The Missing Picture,” Rithy Panh, director;
Denmark, “The Hunt,” Thomas Vinterberg, director;
Germany, “Two Lives,” Georg Maas, director;
Hong Kong, “The Grandmaster,” Wong Kar-wai, director;
Hungary, “The Notebook,” Janos Szasz, director;
Italy, “The Great Beauty,” Paolo Sorrentino, director;
Palestine, “Omar,” Hany Abu-Assad, director.
