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

[kjendis5]

I find this category so stange. Is this rules new? I watched Australian entry from last year, JirgaIs last night. Most of the movie was spoken in English. It didn't get disqualified.

What requires a movie to be "foreign" or "International"? An example, "call me by your name" was shoot in Italy, by an Italian production, by an Italian director, book based on an Italian(?) writer. The movie has American actors, but I would say the movie is more Italian movie, than American movie.
The same applies on all these Oscar entry who has English spoken words.

[manu19]

That whole category is just stupid like ... a movie that is in English shouldn’t automatically disqualify it. It’s still foreign, just because it’s in a INTERNATIONAL language, doesn’t make it less foreign.

Let’s say a German award show has a category „foreign film“. So Austria wouldn’t be allowed even though Austria is obviously not Germany and therefore foreign

[spiral_mystik]

I know that the Cesars, in France, have a category for foreign films. And it's for any foreign movie in French or not. Canada and Belgium have been nominated a lot with their movies in French.
I think that makes sense.
But at the same time, I still feel like some countries would still be disadvantaged if the Oscars did the same. Like, all some big American producers and directors would have to do, is to work with English speaking foreigners and that's it. They'd sweep the nominations for best international movie too.

[piratesswoop]

the category used to be "best foreign language film" which is why this rule was in place, but i think they changed the name for next year but haven't changed the rules.

[spiral_mystik]

The name change was a mistake.
Technically, that movie and the Nigerian movie can just campaign for "Best Picture" like every other movie in English. But we all know they'll never get considered. The Academy is an American institution.
So what is there for them?

[ghettoluvpr]

Colonialism wins again.

[sixpita]

Seems like having separate foreign film and foreign language categories would be the way to fix this. They won't do that because the Academy is stodgy and regressive, but they could. And under the current rule, would a film in, say, Cherokee count as a foreign film?

[piratesswoop]

this used to be "best foreign language film" so idk why they changed the name rather than just making two separate categories like you said.