Awards Watch: Foreign Fare

The Academy recently released the official list of all the films that will be vying for this year's Foreign Language Oscar. 63 countries are in contention this year, more than ever before, including first-timers Azerbaijan and Ireland. From this list, an Academy special committee will choose the five actual nominees, to be announced with the other nominations on January 22.

As always, this category is not without controversy this year. France shocked the international film community by picking the animated Persepolis over the expected entrant, the acclaimed Edith Piaf biopic La Vie en Rose. The autobiographical Persepolis is also eligible for nomination in the Animated Feature category (and yes, that is an ABBA album in the hands of the toon above). Another notable French omission (ironically, also a biopic) is Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, the true story of Elle editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, which won the director a prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Also MIA: the multi-lingual The Kite Runner, but there's a good reason for that. It hails from the good ol' US of A, therefore it was not eligible for this Oscar.

Israel's The Band's Visit was disqualified for having "too much English in it", further proof that the confounding rules for this category are in desperate need of revamping. And it gets wackier: Australia's The Home Song Stories is mostly in Chinese. And if you were wondering about Ireland's entry (such as, don't they speak English over there?), the language spoken in Kings is primarily Gaelic.

India's Eklavya: The Royal Guard was a big flop in its native country, both commercially and critically, so how did it get selected? That's what a rival film's director wanted to know, and the decision was actually taken to court, to no avail. Taiwan tried to submit Ang Lee's Lust, Caution, but, apart from Lee being a native son, the country had no involvement with the filming and it was rejected by the Academy. Unlike Lust, Caution, most of the films on the final list are unknown so far, save for the Romanian Cannes winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and Spain's The Orphanage, produced by Guillermo del Toro, whose Pan's Labyrinth was a nominee last year.

In related news, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recently changed the rules for their Golden Globe Awards. Films from the United States that are in a foreign language (like last year's winner Letters from Iwo Jima) are no longer eligible in their Foreign Language category, but can compete in their Best Picture race.

UPDATE: The Band's Visit can't catch a break: the Hollywood Foreign Press Association has disqualified it in their Foreign Language Golden Globe category for the same reason the Academy did. It will be eligible in other categories.

Links via Oscar.org, Imdb.com and LATimes.com.