Spain and Oscar's Big Foreign Film Race

I used to be the only site that covered the Oscar Foreign Film Race in anything more than a 'list of titles' way. The sandbox is no longer my terrain alone [*sniffle*] -- even the corporate sites have sections for it now. But at least, you'll give me this hat tip, my foreign Oscar section is always compiled with messy love rather than corporate mandated Oscar-mania. And it has been for years.

I even have a google map of the category --right now it's a charming toddler but when it's full grown (i.e. complete) you'll find it a very informative and handsome fellow. It should keep you well stocked in DVD rental ideas. Feedback appreciated though it's still under construction.


UPDATED 09/26*
Spain is Oscar's third favorite submitting country (19 nominations and 4 wins) in this category. They narrowed their race down to three films. The first was Sangre de Mayo (Blood of May) from José Luis Garci who has represented Spain four times in this category winning for Volver a Empezar back in 1982. But Spain doesn't always go the way we expect. They've snubbed famous directors with potential winner films before: famously Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her was passed over in 2002.

The second was Gracia Querejeta's female driven Siete Mesas de Billar Francés (Seven Tables of French Billiards --what an odd title?!) which co-stars Blanca Portillo (an Almodóvar favorite) who won Best Actress at the San Sebastian Film Festival for this film and Maribel Verdu (pictured, from Y Tu Mama Tambien and Pan's Labyrinth) who are grieving the loss of the same man, one's father the other's lover.

The third and the selected film is Los Girasoles Ciegos (The Blind Sunflowers) a post war drama by José Luis Cuerda which also stars Maribel Verdú -- she's popular these days -- and Talk to Her's Javier Camara.

Now on to the ever growing number of countries that have announced their representative films...

44 official entries announced thus far
Page 1: Austria to Finland
Page 2: France to Japan
Page 3: The Netherlands through Vietnam
* Vietnam's entry may be heading towards disqualification

...with more movies still to be announced if the past number of total submissions is indication -- it usually reaches about 60, give or take a few. All entries must be submitted to AMPAS by October 1st but it'll take Oscar another week or three to release the "official" list.

Don't you love this part? Now if only all of them were available to each and every one us in whichever country we happen to watch movies in. Here's to global distribution for all of this year's submissions.

I bid you adieu with this trailer for Painted Skin which is playing the role of the mandatory Asian action submission



...which, following tradition, the Academy will then ignore, as is their habit post Crouching Tiger (with the wonderful colorful exception of Hero and the blah biopic size of Mongol.
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