List of submissions to the 61st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film

This is a list of submissions to the 61st 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.[1] 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.[2] 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.[2]

For the 61st Academy Awards, thirty-one films were submitted in the category Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. The Soviet film, Commissar, was filmed in 1967, but was banned for twenty years. The bolded titles were the five nominated films, which came from Belgium, Hungary, India, Spain and the eventual winner, Pelle the Conqueror, from Denmark.[3]

Submissions edit

Submitting country Film title used in nomination Original title Language(s) Director(s) Result
  Argentina The Debt La deuda interna Spanish Miguel Pereira Not nominated
  Austria Undiscovered Country Das Weite Land German Luc Bondy Not nominated
  Belgium The Music Teacher Le Maître de musique French Gérard Corbiau Nominated
  Brazil The Story of Fausta Romance da Empregada Brazilian Portuguese Bruno Barreto Not nominated
  Bulgaria Where Do We Go? За къде пътувате? Bulgarian Rangel Vulchanov Not nominated
  Canada The Revolving Doors Les portes tournantes French Francis Mankiewicz Not nominated
  China Red Sorghum 红高粱 Mandarin Zhang Yimou Not nominated
  Cuba Letters from the Park Cartas del parque Spanish Tomás Gutiérrez Alea Not nominated
  Denmark Pelle the Conqueror Pelle erobreren Scanian, Danish, Swedish Bille August Won Academy Award
  Dominican Republic One Way Ticket Un Pasaje de Ida Spanish Agliberto Meléndez Not nominated
  France The Reader La Lectrice French Michel Deville Not nominated
  West Germany Yasemin German Hark Bohm Not nominated
  Greece In the Shadow of Fear Στη σκιά του τρόμου Greek Giorgos Karypidis Not nominated
  Hungary Hanussen Hungarian, German István Szabó Nominated
  Iceland In the Shadow of the Raven Í skugga hrafnsins Icelandic, German Hrafn Gunnlaugsson Not nominated
  India Salaam Bombay! सलाम बॉम्बे Hindi Mira Nair Nominated
  Israel The Summer of Aviya הקיץ של אביה Hebrew, Yiddish Eli Cohen Not nominated
  Italy The Legend of the Holy Drinker La Leggenda del santo bevitore Italian Ermanno Olmi Not nominated
  Japan Hope and Pain ダウンタウン・ヒーローズ Japanese Yoji Yamada Not nominated
  Mexico The Last Tunnel El último túnel Spanish Servando González Not nominated
  Netherlands The Vanishing Spoorloos Dutch, French, English George Sluizer Disqualified
  Nicaragua The Ghost of War El espectro de la guerra Spanish Ramiro Lacayo-Deshon Not nominated
  Norway The Ice Palace Is-slottet Norwegian Per Blom Not nominated
  Peru The Mouth of the Wolf La boca del lobo Spanish Francisco José Lombardi Not nominated
  Poland A Short Film About Love Krótki film o milosci Polish Krzysztof Kieślowski Not nominated
  Portugal Hard Times Tempos Difíceis Portuguese João Botelho Not nominated
  Puerto Rico Tango Bar Spanish Marcos Zurinaga Not nominated
  Soviet Union Commissar Комиссар Russian Aleksandr Askoldov Not nominated
  Spain Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios Spanish Pedro Almodóvar Nominated
  Switzerland La Méridienne French Jean-François Amiguet Not nominated
  Taiwan My Mother's Teahouse 春秋茶室 Mandarin Chen Kunhou Not nominated
  Yugoslavia My Uncle's Legacy Život sa stricem Serbo-Croatian Krsto Papić Not nominated

Notes edit

  •   The Dutch submission, the thriller The Vanishing, was disqualified by the Oscar committee.[4] AMPAS complained that less than 50% of the dialogue in the film was in Dutch, and that French was the majority language. Although the film was made by the Netherlands with a French-Dutch filmmaker and a mixed cast (mostly Dutch), AMPAS deemed that the film was not suitable to represent the Netherlands. The Netherlands declined to send another film, leaving them unrepresented for the first time since 1972.

References edit

  1. ^ "History of the Academy Awards 2 - Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences". 2008-06-22. Archived from the original on 2008-06-22. Retrieved 2022-10-09.
  2. ^ a b "Rule 14 | 81st Academy Awards Rules | Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences". 2008-08-09. Archived from the original on 2008-08-09. Retrieved 2022-10-09.
  3. ^ "The 61st Academy Awards (1989) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
  4. ^ Harmetz, Aljean (21 February 1989). "Nomination Intricacies For Foreign-Film Oscar". New York Times. Retrieved 20 August 2015.