Italian language course: New rules for foreign Oscars

Associated Press
Jul. 7, 2006 12:00 AM

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has changed the way it chooses nominees for best foreign-language film and eliminated a rule requiring entries to be in the official language of the submitting country.

The academy's governors approved a new process in judging foreign-language films, allowing New York-based academy members to participate in the selection for the first time, according to a statement last Friday.

A shortlist of films from nine countries will be chosen by the same Los Angeles-based screening committee that has traditionally viewed the approximately 60 submissions. That shortlist will be screened by a second committee, made up of 10 randomly selected members of the original committee, 10 LA-based members not on the original committee and 10 New York-area members. That group will view the shortlisted films and select nominees from that field. advertisement


In another change, entries submitted in the category no longer must be in the official language of the submitting country. As long as the predominant language isn't English, a picture from any country may be in any language or combination of languages.

Last year, Italy's initial selection, Private, directed and written by Saverio Costanzo, was ruled ineligible because its dialogue was mostly in Arabic and Hebrew. The film is about a Palestinian family whose home gets taken over by Israeli soldiers.

Academy executive director Bruce Davis said Private qualified for the foreign language film category "in every other way except one: there was no Italian language in it."

"The rules clearly prohibited that, but the situation didn't seem fair to us," Davis said. "So if the Taiwanese want to send us a picture with exclusively Portuguese dialogue this year, we're ready for them."

Academy Award nominations will be announced in January. The 79th Annual Academy Awards will be presented Feb. 25, 2007.


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