By Steve Pond at TheWrap
Iran’s “A Separation,” Canada’s “Monsieur Lazhar” and Poland’s “In Darkness” are among the nine films to make the shortlist in the Best Foreign-Language Film category, the Academy announced on Wednesday.
Also making the cut: Belgium’s “Bullhead,” Denmark’s “Superclasico,” Germany’s “Pina,” Israel’s “Footnote,” Morocco’s “Omar Killed Me” and Taiwain’s “Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale.”
“Pina,” a 3D documentary about dance pioneer Pina Bausch, is an unusual selection for voters in the category. “Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale” is a four-and-a-half hour epic about a native uprising against Japanese occupiers in 1930, which according to Academy voters played like gangbusters at a sparsely attended Saturday morning screening.
Films from several high-profile international auteurs failed to make the shortlist, including Aki Kaurismaki’s wry “Le Havre,” Bela Tarr’s “The Turin Horse” and Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia.”
Other films that were not selected included France’s “Declaration of War,” Mexico’s “Miss Bala” and China’s “The Flowers of War,” with Christian Bale.
Volunteers who made up the foreign-language general committee viewed all 63 nominees at Academy screenings over the past three months, and scored each film on a scale of six to 10.
The six films with the highest average scores moved on, and a 20-person executive committee met on Tuesday night and added three films of its own choosing to complete the shortlist.
The foreign-language shortlist always prompts guessing games about which films were voted in by the general committee and which were saved by the executive committee. Among this year’s selections, the general committee seems likely to be responsible for “Footnote,” “Monsieur Lazhar,” “Superclasico,” “In Darkness,” “Warriors of the Rainbow” and probably “A Separation” — though if that last film was not voted in by the general committee, it certainly would have been a save.
“Bullhead” was a likely executive-committee save, and “Pina” may well have been one also.
On Friday, Saturday and Sunday, two specially-chosen committees – a 20-person committee in Los Angeles and a 10-person committee in New York – will watch the nine shortlisted films, three each day, and then vote for the five nominees.
The shortlist:
Belgium, “Bullhead,” Michael R. Roskam, director;
Canada, “Monsieur Lazhar,” Philippe Falardeau, director;
Denmark, “Superclásico,” Ole Christian Madsen, director;
Germany, “Pina,” Wim Wenders, director;
Iran, “A Separation,” Asghar Farhadi, director;
Israel, “Footnote,” Joseph Cedar, director;
Morocco, “Omar Killed Me,” Roschdy Zem, director;
Poland, “In Darkness,” Agnieszka Holland, director;
Taiwan, “Warriors of the Rainbow: Seediq Bale,” Wei Te-sheng, director.
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