Austrian Entry 'Joy' Disqualified From International Feature Competition

[hewontgo]

Entries must feature "a predominantly non-English dialogue track," per Academy rules, but a review found that two-third of Austria's entry is in English... https://t.co/3XMfW6WUJf via @thr
- Scott Feinberg (@ScottFeinberg) November 11, 2019
Entries must feature "a predominantly non-English dialogue track," per Academy rules

Comments

[frankthesheep]

I just submitted this with better commentary as to why this harms former British colonies.

Francophone countries like Benin can submit an entirely French language film and no one would be like "try again in your native language". But countries like Nigeria can't get away with that. This film had pidgin-english in it - I wonder how that was counted.

Also, see how Britain is submitting a film in a Malawian language as their entry.

[glutenfreefool]

Oh, I'd be interested in that commentary

[frankthesheep]

Oh, I'd be interested in that commentary.

lol - I pretty much summarised it in my previous comment.

English drives the infrastructure.
exactly! I know Nigerian people in Nigerian that didn't even speak a native language growing up... my brother being one of them....

[glutenfreefool]

Lmao, oh well ty then! Basically the conclusion my mom and I came to ourselves

[just444]

why did Austria submit this to begin with

unlike Nigeria they have done this lots of times before, they should know the rules

[frankthesheep]

I guess they thought it would be acceptable because English a 'foreign language' to them.

[just444]

thi is all confusing

[asnindie]

This seems ridiculous

[squirrels_oh_no]

This category is still so fucked up. Austria won for Amour which was in French. The only chance a lot of African movies have is to be entered by a European country or Canada.

Could an American film enter if it was in an indigenous language or Spanish?

[buzzybhn]

No, American films can't be submitted. Also funding comes into play in terms of which country is allowed to submit a film and which isn't.

Canada (and a lot of other countries) couldn't even submit a film until like a decade ago, the rules used to be that it had to be in the countries official language - so if it was English, then you couldn't submit a film no matter what language it was in.

[brokecouture]

[glutenfreefool]

Yeah, that's actually an interesting question since (I may be misremembering my indigenous American studies) certain Native American nations are recognized by the US as having their own autonomy? I might be wording that incorrectly, but?? I would think they should be allowed submissions especially since those communities are overlooked as it is.

what a mess this category is

[just444]

Prior to Joy, Austria had submitted 42 films for consideration for the award that, until April 2019, was known as best foreign language film. Two, 2007's The Counterfeiters and 2012's Amour, went on to wins; two others, 1986's '38 - Vienna Before the Fall and 2008's Revanche, settled for nominations; and one, 2005's Cache, was disqualified. Cache was deemed ineligible not because it was found to be predominantly in English, but because it is predominantly in a different language other than the official language of the submitting country, namely French. At the time, that was against the rules.

Re: what a mess this category is

[squirrels_oh_no]

And then they changed the rules and Haneke won for Amour so yeah.

Re: what a mess this category is

[sthlmsyndrom]

just make it all countries excep the us, uk, nz, australia & canada and be done with it? thats what i assume americans see as international, and then countries can just submit without this issue.

Re: what a mess this category is

[dinkerd]

This could also get pretty dicey imo. Most of New Zealand's submissions have been in Samoan or Maori and it would be pretty unfair to prevent those films from having a chance just because they were submitted by an English speaking country. Canada of course has a large French-speaking film industry and it's not like those films get a shot in the regular Oscar categories either.

Another issue is that foreign films are often international co-productions, and a lot of films can be made thanks to funding from the UK or Australia. If you ban the UK or Australia from submitting films to this category you would also diminish the chances for a lot of films that are not in English and deserve to be highlighted.

I do agree that there needs to be some kind of exception for countries like Nigeria, where the academy wouldn't usually take their movies into consideration despite being in English, but I don't think banning certain countries would solve the category's issues.