Nine features from among those submitted for consideration in the Academy Awards’ Best Foreign Language Film category have advanced to the next round of voting, it was announced Friday.
Films from 76 countries, the most ever had been considered. While countries choose which motion pictures to submit, Academy rules regarding theatrical distribution have kept some films from eligibility, such as the highly-acclaimed French drama, Blue Is the Warmest Color.
A committee of several hundred Los Angeles-based Academy members screened submissions and voted, with their top six choices augmented by three additional selections voted on by the Academy’s Executive Committee.
Screening committees in New York and LA will winnow down these choices to five, to be revealed when the Oscar nominations are announced on January 16, 2014.
The shortlisted films with short descriptions are presented below:
The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium)
Belgian musician Didier and tattoo artist Elisa bond over a shared love for bluegrass music. The story tells of their life together raising a child , a life shaken by tragedy. And what would bluegrass music be without some tragedy?
An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker (Bosnia and Herzegovina)
A slice of life about economic hardship for a dispossessed Roma family, in which a mother needing medical attention cannot pay the hospital, thereby facing death.
The Missing Picture (Cambodia)
The film tells the story of atrocities committed by Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, and the tragedy that befell his family. But with few images to tell his story -- his family’s possessions were lost or destroyed, and precious little survives from a time when famine, disease and executions killed as many as three to four million people who had been forced from cities into the countryside to work on farms.
The Hunt (Denmark)
An upstanding school teacher whose reputation and life were jeopardized by a slanderous accusation of pedophilia.
Two Lives (Germany)
A story is set after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in which a family living in Norway is torn by the secrets of paternity unveiled from Stasi archives.
The Grandmaster (Hong Kong)
The story of martial-arts master Ip Man, the man who trained Bruce Lee.
The Notebook (Hungary)
Two teenage brothers, sent to the countryside during World War II, confront the growing inhumanity unfolding around them by extinguishing all emotion from themselves , and losing their own sense of humanity at the cost of their survival.
The Great Beauty (Italy)
A writer turning 65 takes stock of his life – and of the Eternal City -- in Paolo Sorrentino’s visually astonishing film.
Omar (Palestinian Territories)
A psychological thriller tells of childhood friends on the West Bank whose trust is threatened by murder, betrayal, and the pressures brought by intelligence officers searching for the killer of an Israeli soldier.
The Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center.