This is a list of submissions to the 44th 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 44th Academy Awards, twenty films were submitted in the category Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Bulgaria and Canada submitted films for consideration for the first time. Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa gained his first nomination for the award (although he had received an honorary award at the 24th Academy Awards in 1951 for Rashomon) for Dodes'ka-den, a film which was a critical and commercial failure in his native Japan. The five nominated films came from Israel, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the Soviet Union.
Italy won the award for the ninth time with The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by Vittorio De Sica, which was also nominated for Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
Submissions Submitting country Film title used in nomination Original title Language(s) Director(s) Result Pra Quem Fica, Tchau Brazilian Portuguese Reginaldo Faria Porcupines Are Born Without Bristles Таралежите се раждат без бодли Bulgarian Dimitar Petrov Mon oncle Antoine French Claude Jutra The Missing Clerk Den forsvundne fuldmægtig Danish Gert Fredholm A Woman and a Man امرأة و رجل Arabic Houssam Eddine Mostafa Ramparts of Clay Remparts d'argile French, Arabic Jean-Louis Bertuccelli The Castle Das Schloß German Rudolf Noelte Love Szerelem Hungarian, German Károly Makk Reshma Aur Shera रेशमा और शेरा Hindi Sunil Dutt The Policeman השוטר אזולאי Hebrew Ephraim Kishon The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini Italian Vittorio De Sica Dodes'ka-den どですかでん Japanese Akira Kurosawa El Topo Spanish Alejandro Jodorowsky Mira Dutch Fons Rademakers Family Life Życie rodzinne Polish Krzysztof Zanussi The Last Crusade Mihai Viteazul Romanian Sergiu Nicolaescu Tchaikovsky Чайкoвский Russian Igor Talankin Marta Spanish José Antonio Nieves Conde The Emigrants Utvandrarna Swedish Jan Troell Black Seed Црно семе Macedonian Kiril Cenevski
References
Sources Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences