Oscar 2008: Best Foreign-Language Film Semi-Finalists

The Unknown by Giuseppe Tornatore (top); The Counterfeiters by Stefan Ruzowitzky (bottom)

When I stated in my Oscar 2008 predictions that the Academy's foreign-language film shortlist is the most difficult to predict, I wasn't kidding.

Nowhere to be found in the list of nine foreign-language film semi-finalists are:

• Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days — last year's Cannes Film Festival winner and considered by numerous U.S. critics one of the best films of 2007;
• Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud's much-ballyhooed and New York Film Critics Circle winner Persepolis, which may still get a best animated feature nod;
• and Juan Antonio Bayona's box-office hit and multiple-Goya nominee The Orphanage.

Additionally, there was a major surprise among those that did make the cut: Sergei Bodrov's Mongol, a curious Kazakh entry about the early life of Genghis Khan. I say "curious" because, after all, Mongol is a Russian-German-Mongol-Kazakh production mostly shot in China. Director, co-writer, and co-producer Bodrov is Russian, and so are co-producers Sergei Selyanov and Anton Melnik, and co-cinematographer Sergei Trofimov. Co-cinematographer Rogier Stoffers is Dutch; co-editor Valdís Óskarsdóttir is Icelandic; co-editor Zach Staenberg is Hollywoodian (The Matrix); composer Tuomas Kantelinen is Finnish; and so on.

Late last year, the Academy turned down Lust, Caution as a Taiwanese entry because Ang Lee was the only Taiwanese national with a key role in the production. (Admittedly, some of the Mongol cast may hail from Kazakhstan or at least may have spent summers there.)

The other potential nominees were considerably more predictable, what with Nazis (The Counterfeiters, Katyn [above]), little boys (The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, The Trap), and Jewish characters (The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, Beaufort, The Counterfeiters), plus three-time nominee Denys Arcand (who won for his 2003 drama The Barbarian Invasions), two-time nominee Giuseppe Tornatore (who won for the 1988 drama Cinema Paradiso), three-time nominee Andrzej Wajda (his last nominated film was the 1981 political drama Man of Iron), and two-time nominee Nikita Mikhalkov (who won for his 1994 drama Burnt by the Sun).

As was the case last year, the foreign-language film nominations for 2007 are being determined in two phases.

The Phase I committee, "consisting of several hundred Los Angeles-based members," as per the Academy's press release, screened 63 eligible foreign-language films. Their votes narrowed down the field to the nine films above.

Left unsaid in the release is that those "several hundred" members don't have to view all 63 films. They only need to watch a certain percentage of 20 or 30 films assigned to their particular screening group. In previous years, the foreign-language film screenings were divided into two groups of 25 films or so. Recently, as more countries have been submitting entries for Oscar consideration, there have been three groups of about 20 films, with two screenings per evening.

A Phase II committee is made up of ten randomly selected members from the LA-based Phase I group, joined by ten New York and LA-based members invited just for the occasion. Those 30 members will watch the nine shortlisted films and then select the five nominees for the category.

And that's how shoo-in Volver failed to make the cut last year.

Phase II screenings will take place from next Friday, January 18, through Sunday, January 20, in both Hollywood and New York City.

In any case, this is one category whose voting and eligibility rules and regulations should be fully revamped.

Nominations for the 2008 Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 22, 2008, at 5:30 a.m. Pacific Time at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

Unless the Writers Guild strike derails things, the Academy Awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, February 24, 2008, at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center.