Roma leads Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominations shortlist

Roma is in the unusual position of being both in heavy contention for the Foreign Language award and for Best Picture

Clarisse Loughrey
Tuesday 18 December 2018 09:38 GMT
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Roma Offical Trailer 2

A shortlist of entries for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award has been released, with nine picked out of a field of 87 submissions.

The list is led by Alfonso Cuarón's Roma, which is in the unusual position of being in heavy contention for the Foreign Language award and also for Best Picture. No film in a language other than English has ever won the top prize for Best Picture.

Other contenders include Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters, the former having missed out on a Golden Globe nomination. Lee Chang-dong’s Burning also made the list.

Golden Globe nominee Girl, by Belgium’s Lukas Dhont, did not make it onto the shortlist, following heavy criticism of the film over its depiction of the trans experience by a cis actor and cis director, which has been branded "irresponsible" and "dangerous".

Also failing to make the cut is Sweden's Border, a fantasy film set in a border agency.

The Phase I Foreign Language voting group decides on six titles for the shortlist, while the Executive Committee selects three further films.

From the nine currently on the shortlist, the five nominees will be revealed on 22 January, alongside the rest of the Oscar nominations.

Here’s the full list of nine shortlisted movies:

Birds Of Passage (Colombia), dirs.: Cristina Gallego/Ciro Guerra

The Guilty (Denmark), dir: Gustav Moller

Never Look Away (Germany), dir: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck

Shoplifters (Japan), dir: Hirokazu Kore-eda

Ayka (Kazakhstan), dir: Sergei Dvortsevoy

Capernaum (Lebanon), dir: Nadine Labaki

Roma (Mexico), dir: Alfonso Cuarón

Cold War (Poland), dir: Pawel Pawlikowski

Burning (Korea), dir: Lee Chang-dong

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