Oscar Shortlists Year's Best Foreign Pics

Wed., Jan. 17, 2007 10:10 PM PST by Natalie Finn

This year's contenders for Best Foreign Language Film, if not already household names, are going to look much more familiar come Oscar time.

For the first time ever, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has released a shortlist of the foreign films that have a shot at being named when the nominees for the 79th Annual Academy Awards are announced Jan. 23.

The nine pre-choices are pretty Western world-centric, all coming from North America and Europe except for Algeria's Days of Glory, a drama about the little-chronicled North African soldiers who fought on the frontlines for France during World War II.

Rounding out the list are Water (Canada), After the Wedding (Denmark), Avenue Montaigne (France), The Lives of Others (Germany), Pan's Labyrinth (Mexico), Black Book (the Netherlands), Volver (Spain) and Vitus (Switzerland).

And before people start swarming the Bastille, the reason this year's Golden Globe winner for Best Foreign Film, Letters from Iwo Jima, wasn't included is that Clint Eastwood's depiction of the Japanese side during that famous battle was technically a U.S. production. Therefore, Eastwood's latest shot at Oscar hardware will probably be battling it out in the overall Best Motion Picture category instead.

The same goes for the Globe-nominated Apocalypto, just in case.

While some of those listed have already been getting more attention than others in the U.S.—whether because of an acclaimed filmmaker who's working yet again with his high-profile muse (Volver director Pedro Almodóvar and star Penélope Cruz), because the director of Hellboy has constructed a delightfully inventive film in his native language (as did Guillermo del Toro with Pan's Labyrinth), or because the director of Showgirls has made something good in his native country (Paul Verhoeven's war thriller Black Book)—all of the movies have stateside distribution already.

And the majority of the names on the Academy's shortlist have already been honored in some way, either overseas or in America, whether for acting, writing, cinematography, directing or the entire film in general.

Pan's Labyrinth, for instance, a dark fantasy about a young girl in 1940s Spain who delves deep into her imagination to escape her harsh stepfather and encounters a mythical faun who convinces her that she's a princess and assigns her a series of life-threatening tasks to reclaim her kingdom, has already snatched up the National Society of Film Critics' award for best picture.

Add to that Best Foreign Language Film honors from the Online Film Critics Society, the San Francisco Film Critics Circle and the Southeastern and Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Associations, and you've got a pretty estimable pedigree heading into the main event.

Volver, Almodóvar's tragicomedy about three generations of women in a Spanish family, has picked up the same title from the Satellite Awards and the National Board of Review, as well as Best Screenplay and Best Actress for its entire female lineup at the Cannes Film Festival.

Meanwhile, The Lives of Others, Germany's offering about a secret police agent assigned to spy on a playwright in postwar East Germany, can lay claim to the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's choice for top foreign film.

And in the better late than never category, Water, which takes place in 1938 India, about an eight-year-old girl whose husband-by-arranged-marriage dies, forcing her to live among the rest of her society's widows in an ashram, took the Broadcast Film Critics Association's nod for Best Foreign Language Film at the Critics' Choice Awards in 2005.

And, thanks to this shortlist, all of the above films are sure to have even more buzz swarming around them when the Academy hands out those little gold men on Feb. 25.