The Best Foreign Language Film Oscar is unusual because it’s the only Academy Award that is not presented to an individual. Although it’s the tradition that the director of the winning film will pick up the statuette, the prize is actually awarded to the country where the film was produced.
This year, a record 83 countries submitted entries by the cut-off date of October 1 (for all other Oscar categories it is December 31). Each country can nominate only one film and that film must have been released in a commercial cinema in the home country for seven consecutive days – it’s the only Oscar that doesn’t require that the film has had a United States release.
Eighty-three films have been whittled down to a list of nine. The Phase I committee, a group that consists of several hundred Los Angeles-based Academy members, watch all of the films and select six, while the remaining three are voted on by the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee.
Six of the nine films still in the running had their regional premiere at the Abu Dhabi or Dubai film festivals. Ida (Poland) was shown at ADFF in 2013. Timbuktu (Mauritania), Leviathan (Russia) and Corn Island (Georgia) all premiered at last year's ADFF, while Force Majeure (Sweden) and Wild Tales (Argentina) played at Diff last month.
The other three films in contention are Tangerines (Estonia), Accused (Netherlands) and The Liberator (Venezuela).
From Friday, January 9 until Sunday, January 11, specially invited committees in New York, Los Angeles and – for the first time – London, will cut the list down to the final five nominees, which will be announced on January 15 along with the nominees in the other Oscar categories. But which ones stand a realistic chance of going all the way?
Ida
Ida began playing at festivals last year but, because of the different qualification dates for foreign-language films, only qualified for Oscar contention this year. The black-and-white film is certain to be on the final shortlist and is the most likely win. The director Pawel Pawlikowski's film has a Second World War theme and tells the story of a would-be Polish nun who discovers that her biological parents were Jews murdered during the war.
Leviathan
The main challenger to Ida is likely to come from Leviathan, which won the Black Pearl Best Film Award and the Best Actor prize for Alexey Serebryakov at ADFF last year.
Set in a Russian coastal town, it’s a brilliant deconstruction of bureaucratic corruption that some have argued is a not-so-veiled attack on Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
Corn Island
Corn Island is part of a wave of near dialogue-free movies that seem to have exploded after the success of The Artist.
The story, set on the timeless hinterland on the edges of Eastern Europe, features peasants working against the backdrop of border animosity between Georgia and the autonomous region of Abkhazia.
Although the film won the top prize at Karlovy Vary, it was a big surprise that it made the Oscar long list and would be a shock nomination.
Timbuktu
The first film Mauritania has entered in the Oscar race. Partly funded by the Doha Film Institute, Timbuktu is a devastating tale about an African town overrun by jihadists. The director Abderrahmane Sissako's excellent drama received a Special Jury Mention at ADFF, and a place on the shortlist would be a big boost for African film.
Wild Tales
Portmanteau films and comedies usually get short shrift from the Academy, but having debuted in competition at Cannes before appearing at DIFF, the director Damián Szfrón's debut film Wild Tales is proving something of a surprise package. With the final nomination decided by the committee watching the nine films back-to-back over the course of three days, this black comedy may win a few votes from members delighted to have a light-hearted interlude.
Force Majeure
A morality tale in the form of a domestic drama that plays out in the French Alps. As a controlled avalanche approaches, a wife discovers that her husband would save himself before their children and their already strained marriage reaches breaking point.
It’s likely that Ruben Östlund’s tale will be nominated, but it’s an outside bet to win the big prize.
Tangerines; The Liberator; and Accused
The Estonian film Tangerines is set around the same conflict and has, judging by its Golden Globe nomination, a much greater chance of making the final five.
Also in with a good shout is The Liberator, if only because the biopic about Simon Boliviar, starring Édgar Ramirez, is the most expensive Latin American film ever made.
The final film on the list is Accused, a Dutch thriller about nurse Lucia de Berk, the so-called Angel of Death who was convicted of murdering children who died under her watch.
artslife@thenational.ae
