Foreign Language Film Short-list

[OscarGuy]

I guess the question is this: which films did the governors select to bypass the voters' lame selections? If The Past and Wadjda were left off, there must have been an especially large dearth of quality votes.

[anonymous1980]

The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

• Belgium, The Broken Circle Breakdown, Felix van Groeningen, director
• Bosnia and Herzegovina, An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker, Danis Tanovic, director
• Cambodia, The Missing Picture, Rithy Panh, director
• Denmark, The Hunt, Thomas Vinterberg, director
• Germany, Two Lives, Georg Maas, director
• Hong Kong, The Grandmaster, Wong Kar-wai, director
• Hungary, The Notebook, Janos Szasz, director
• Italy, The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino, director
• Palestine, Omar, Hany Abu-Assad, director

High-profile snubs: The Past and Wadjda.

I'm disappointed our entry Transit didn't make it. I think it's one of our strongest entries and one of the best films of the year for me. It had an excellent shot of making the top 5 had it overcome the obstacle of getting into the top 9 semi-finals. I guess it needed that one whole year to establish an international festival circuit profile. I've seen The Missing Picture (just today in fact) which I admire a great deal but I would've voted for Transit over it. The Philippines has the worst luck since we actually had THREE shots to be represented this year since Singapore (Ilo Ilo) and the UK (Metro Manila) submitted Filipino themed films.