This is a list of submissions to the 64th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was created in 1956 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to honour non-English-speaking films produced outside the United States. The award is handed out annually, and is accepted by the winning film's director, although it is considered an award for the submitting country as a whole. Countries are invited by the Academy to submit their best films for competition according to strict rules, with only one film being accepted from each country.
For the 64th Academy Awards, thirty-four films were submitted in the category Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The five nominated films came from Czechoslovakia, Hong Kong, Iceland, Sweden and Italy. Hong Kong and Iceland received their first-ever nominations, while Czechoslovakia received its final nomination as a unified state.
Italy won the award for the twelfth time with Mediterraneo by Gabriele Salvatores.
Submissions Submitting country Film title used in nomination Original title Language(s) Director(s) Result Cheb French, Arabic Rachid Bouchareb The Tombs Las tumbas Spanish Javier Torre The Voice in the Wilderness Armenian Vigen Chaldranyan I Love Vienna German, English, Italian, Polish, Persian, Arabic Houchang Allahyari Toto the Hero Toto le héros French Jaco Van Dormael ExposureA Grande ArteBrazilian Portuguese, English, SpanishWalter Salles The Well Кладенецът Bulgarian Docho Bodzhakov A Bullet in the Head Fictional Language Attila Bertalan La Frontera Spanish Ricardo Larraín The Spring Festival 过年 Mandarin Huang Jianzhong Confessing to Laura Confesión a Laura Spanish Jaime Osorio Gómez Hello Hemingway Fernando Perez The Elementary School Obecná skola Czech Jan Svěrák Fragments: Chronicle of a Vanishing Croatian Zrinko Ogresta The Great Day on the Beach Den store badedag Danish Stellan Olsson Van Gogh French Maurice Pialat Raise the Red Lantern 大紅燈籠高高掛 Mandarin Zhang Yimou Brats Félálom Hungarian János Rózsa Children of Nature Börn náttúrunnar Icelandic, English Friðrik Þór Friðriksson Henna हिना Hindi, Urdu Randhir Kapoor Beyond the Sea מעבר לים Hebrew Jacob Goldwasser Mediterraneo Italian, English, Greek Gabriele Salvatores Rhapsody in August 八月の狂詩曲 Japanese Akira Kurosawa Homework La tarea Spanish Jaime Humberto Hermosillo Eline Vere Dutch Harry Kümel Frida – Straight from the Heart Frida - med hjertet i hånden Norwegian Berit Nesheim Alias 'La Gringa' Spanish Alberto Durant The Double Life of Véronique Podwójne życie Weroniki Polish, French Krzysztof Kieślowski O Sangue O Sangue Portuguese Pedro Costa Get Thee Out Изыди! Russian Dmitriy Astrakhan High Heels Tacones lejanos Spanish Pedro Almodóvar The Ox Oxen Swedish Sven Nykvist Der Berg Der Berg Swiss German Markus Imhoof A Brighter Summer Day 牯嶺街少年殺人事件 Mandarin, Shanghainese, Taiwanese Hokkien Edward Yang Lost in Siberia Затерянный в Сибири Russian Alexander Mitta Jericho Jericó Spanish Luis Alberto Lamata The Original of the Forgery Оригинал фалсификата Serbian Dragan Kresoja
Notes
Germany caused controversy when it took the unusual step not to submit any film to the competition. Europa, Europa by Agnieszka Holland was one of the pre-selection favorites to win the award. Although the film was made in German and about Germany, the country's National Film Board said that because they considered the film to be a majority-French production, and because the director was Polish, they did not consider it qualified to represent Germany. This is the only time since 1977 that Germany failed to be represented. In spite of a rule requiring films to be in the language of the submitting country, AMPAS decided to accept a submission from the United Kingdom that was mostly in Russian, marking the UK's first-ever participation in the competition. AMPAS acknowledged that they had received four submissions from new Eastern European republics, Armenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Slovenia, which had each declared independence in mid-to-late 1991. Since none of the countries had yet been recognized internationally, the films were disqualified and not screened, although representatives from their parent states - the USSR and Yugoslavia - were allowed to compete. AMPAS did not announce the titles, but based on the small size of these republic's film industries at the time it appears certain that Macedonia chose Stole Popov's Tetoviranje, the most celebrated Yugoslavian film of 1991, and that Croatia, Slovenia and Armenia likely chose family drama Fragments, black comedy The Cartier Operation and surreal religious drama The Voice in the Wilderness respectively. Other countries notable by their absence included Egypt, Finland, Greece and Romania.
References