comment #1

NDH says ...

This is getting ridiculous. It shouldn't matter what language is being spoken. If the film was made by a foreign country, it should be eligible for Best Foreign Film, period. Who cares if a large portion of the movie is in English? If I recall, NO MAN'S LAND contained a sizable amount of English dialogue, but then I guess it came within the allowed percentage. Once the "Rulebook" gets to the point where it requires that every English word in the film be added up and scaled against every non-English word, I say throw the "Rulebook" out the window.

comment #2

blackdogbrigade says ...

Uh...it was disqualified from the Best Foreign Language Film...there is no Best Foreign Film category...maybe there should be.

comment #3

Edward Havens says ...

If the film is good enough, maybe it will get nominated for Best Picture, like other very good non-American movies like Il Postino and Crouching Tiger. But all this harping is bullshit. The Academy's rules about the Foreign Language Film category have been in place for decades, and many other films have been disqualified for similar infractions. It's not as if this one film is being singled out. The Academy is being consistent in their findings. English is not a foreign language in America (yet), and this non-American film is not predominantly in its native country's home language. End of story. If you want to help the film, start a campaign for it to get nominated for Best Picture.

comment #4

Gaydos says ...

Havens is right and as it's been noted before, there's real value in both HFPA and Oscars having a category for foreign LANGUAGE films as otherwise the tyranny of English-language, foreign-produced will crater the chances for films in other languages. This part of the process ain't broke.

Now if you want to do an investigation on how the films qualify for "official" submission to these contests, you will find a kettle of extremely unpleasant-smelling fish.

comment #5

NDH says ...

So, because a set of rules has been around for decades, it should be considered Gospel? I don't buy that for a second. The Academy is constantly changing its qualification rules for the Documentary Feature category. This year, for the first time, Docs had to screen in fourteen different markets, instead of just NY and LA, and do so before August. These rules have been changed again for next year. If the Academy is constantly fluctuating on how it deems a Doc to be eligible, I don't see the harm in pointing out flaws in some of their other rules. Sorry for the rant, but I used to live in Israel and I'm particularly miffed that THE BAND'S VISIT got the shaft.

comment #6

Chinaski says ...

These are the same people who nominated Mel Gibson and Clint Eastwood in the foreign film category last year. They're shameless starfuckers, what do they care about some little Israeli film?

comment #7

Edward Havens says ...

NDH, let's stay on topic here for a minute. We're not talking about documentaries, we are talking about Foreign Language films. And since the Academy's rules about that category has been fairly consistent for the fifty or so years of the category's existence, it should come as no surprise that a non-American film that isn't predominantly in its home tongue has been ruled ineligible.

Since Chinaski brings it up, "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Apocalypto" were both ineligible for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. Why? Because Japanese nor Maya are the official language of the United States. That, and there is no official American Film Board that could nominate a film to represent America in the category, but the point remains. English is not a foreign language in the United States, so the ruling is understandable. Since the film is from Israel, it should be in Hebrew, just as the Italian entry should be in Italian and the Wales entry should be in Welsh.

The Best Foreign Language category was created to help films not in English get some notice. Without this award, who knows if Akira Kurosawa or Federico Fellini would have been discovered outside of their home countries. A film like The Band's Visit, which was made mostly in English to help sell it across the world, will not have the same troubles as The Year My Parents Went On Vacation, as it will be much easier for Sony Classics to cut a trailer with all that English dialogue for Band than it will be for City Lights to cut a trailer that would only be in Portuguese.

Fight the fight that can be won, not the fight that was lost years ago, when a producer and a director made a clear choice to make their film in a certain way. Their choice led to this decision, and they have only themselves to blame.

That being said, I look forward to seeing Band next week. I hope I find it to be as entertaining as I have heard.

comment #8

NDH says ...

Jeez Havens, way to take the steam out of a guy's rant. I understand all of your points and I actually agree with you. My gripe comes with the category itself. blackdogbrigade makes a good point by saying that maybe the category should be changed from Best Foreign Language Film to simply Best Foreign Film. It seems a little more inclusive that way, and filmmakers won't have to tip toe around what percent of their project is in English and what percent isn't.

Of course, having said that, I'm just appeasing my own mind by creating a scenario in which THE BAND'S VISIT would be eligible, and I couldn't care less were it any other film. In fact, had it been the opposite case (in which the Academy did allow eligibility for "English driven" films), and a "non-English" foreign film that I supported lost to one of these "English" foreign films, I would probably rant against that rule too and demand that the category be changed from Foreign Film to Foreign Language Film. Shameful, I know. But such is the way of opinion when partiality comes into play.