Best Foreign Language Films: Biggest Oscar Snubs #4a
"City of God is a potent and unexpected mixture of authenticity and flash. It's both the slickly made first feature [sic]* from Brazil's most successful director of commercials and a vigorous piece of social realism that's unmistakably trading on something actual," wrote Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times.
Roger Ebert's Chicago Sun-Times review praised City for God for churning "with furious energy as it plunges into the story of the slum gangs of Rio de Janeiro. Breathtaking and terrifying, urgently involved with its characters, it announces a new director of great gifts and passions: Fernando Meirelles. Remember the name. The film has been compared with Scorsese's GoodFellas, and it deserves the comparison."
Despite mostly enthusiastic reviews, City of God failed to be nominated for the 2002 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Ironically, pushed by Harvey Weinstein's Oscar-obsessed Miramax, the violent drama resurfaced in 2003 to nab no less than four nods in regular categories, including Best Direction. So much for the foreign language film voters representing the Academy's likes and dislikes.
As an aside: In previous years even nominated films in the Best Foreign Language Film category could resurface in the regular categories in subsequent years, as long as they had their Los Angeles release in the year in question. For instance, Federico Fellini's Amarcord won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 1974, but it was nominated for Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay in 1975, the year of its LA release.
That rules has — unfortunately and unfairly — been changed. Currently, only non-nominated entries submitted for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar may be eligible for the Academy Awards' other slots as long as they're released in the Los Angeles area the following year.
From the Academy's website [text in bold in the original]:
"Motion pictures that are nominated for the Foreign Language Film award shall not be eligible for Academy Awards consideration in any category in any subsequent Awards year. Submitted pictures that are not nominated for the Foreign Language Film award are eligible for Awards consideration in other categories in the subsequent year, provided the pictures begin their seven-day qualifying run in Los Angeles County during that calendar year."
* Fernando Meirelles' had previously co-directed with Nando Olival the social comedy-drama Domésticas / Maids, released in 2001; and he'd previously co-directed with Fabrizia Pinto Menino Maluquinho 2: A Aventura in 1998.
Photo: Miramax
Sou Liliane e amei o filme Cidade de Deus,o diretor Fernando e sem duvida o melhor profissional na area e eu fiquei apaixonada pelo trabalho de diretor que eu escrevi um roteiro de açao que se chama Os Guardioes , sao jovens que lutam artes marciais e agora estou tentando achar apoio para que esse seriado possa passar na tv,mas sei que em breve acharei a pessoa certa para me ajudar.Continue com esse trabalho maravilhoso porque eu sempre estarei te apoiando, um grande abraço de sua adminadora Liliane
Austin,
As you say, Kátia Lund was credited as co-director — not director. That would explain why Fernando Meirelles — not Lund — received the Oscar nomination. In all honesty, I don't know how this "co-director" credit came about. Whether Lund was an assistant director or handled various duties or …
I do know that the Directors Guild frowns at shared directorial credits. That's why Joel and Ethan Coen used to split their film credits, with Joel as the nominal director and Ethan as the nominal editor when the brothers performed both duties.
I just did a search for "Cidade de Deus" and "Katia Lund." Didn't discover anything about the co-director credit, but did find an interesting — or rather, bizarre — interview in which Lund is quoted as saying that Christianity ("the Church") is the only salvation for slum kids involved in drug gangs for it provides them with a new identity as members of "a new organization, with new brothers and new functions."
http://www.comunidadesegura.org/pt-br/node/11560 (use Google translator or some such tool)
Elsewhere Lund says she has no religion. That's is all about "democracy, civic duty and citizenship."
http://www.brazzil.com/p106mar03.htm
CIDADE DE DEUS | CITY OF GOD bears two credits for direction — Director: Fernando Meirelles; Co-Director: Kátia Lund.
I don't know whether Senhora Lund had not been included in the nomination because of the strict DGA/Academy rules about one director per film, and the high burden of proof of "established duo" for exceptions to the rule — or because the credit was a "nominal" one which had, perhaps, been created as the result of negotiations — and therefore, properly omitted from substantive discussions of the direction.
I would like to know; as it is, the omission of Sra. Lund's name from discussions of the film, e.g., the Wikipedia article which treats it, is — absent some kind of explanation — troubling.
No. It's been that way for a while.
"La vita e bella" was nominated for best foreign language film and best film *the same year.*
La vita e bella, the film from Roberto Benigni, won 3 oscars (including Best Foreign Film), so..
"Motion pictures that are nominated for the Foreign Language Film award shall not be eligible for Academy Awards consideration in any category in any subsequent Awards year"
this is new?