For Your Consideration... The Best Foreign Language Film Award Goes To...

Wouldn't you like one of
these golden statues?

For those of you who are reading this from the United States, we're going to talk a little bit about the Oscars. For those of you who are reading from almost everywhere else, I hope you can learn a little about our big film awards event that determines the few foreign films that most Americans have the opportunity of seeing.

You've undoubtedly heard the buzz about the Academy Awards, also known as the Oscars, taking place this upcoming Sunday, and I bet you know about the top pictures that are nominated, like American Hustle, Gravity, and Captain Phillips. But, how much do you know about any of the films in the Best Foreign Language Film category and how that works?

In order for a film to be nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category, each country's film board or top film producers (depending on the country) get together and decide which movie will best represent them in the United States and what they think is most worthy of receiving an award. There are a number of rules for the films to follow, but one of the biggest ones is that the film cannot be in English for a majority of the movie (which might make it extremely difficult for British films to be a contender). Once a country selects its most representative film, it is submitted, voted upon by members of the Academy, and hopefully becomes a contender in the Academy Award race.

I am an extremely large fan of that category in the Oscars, as the movies that are nominated usually become much easier to find in the States. So far, The Great Beauty looks like the front runner for Best Foreign Language Film, as it won at the Golden Globes and the BAFTA Awards. But here are some short synopses for all the films nominated, so hopefully you will see something that strikes your interest (all synopses are pulled from IMDb.com).

The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium, 2012): Elise and Didier fall in love at first sight, in spite of their differences. He talks, she listens. He's a romantic atheist, she's a religious realist. When their daughter becomes seriously ill, their love is put on trial.

The Hunt (Denmark, 2012): A teacher lives a lonely life, all the while struggling over his son's custody. His life slowly gets better as he finds love and receives good news from his son, but his new luck is about to be brutally shattered by an innocent little lie.

The Great Beauty (Italy, 2013): Jep Gambardella has seduced his way through the lavish nightlife of Rome for decades, but after his 65th birthday and a shock from the past, Jep looks past the nightclubs and parties to find a timeless landscape of absurd, exquisite beauty.

The Missing Picture (Cambodia, 2013): Rithy Panh uses clay figures, archival footage, and his narration to recreate the atrocities Cambodia's Khmer Rouge committed between 1975 and 1979.

Omar (Palestine, 2013): A young Palestinian freedom fighter agrees to work as an informant after he's tricked into an admission of guilt by association in the wake of an Israeli soldier's killing.

And in addition, here are some movies that were left out of the Oscar race, but were nominated for a Golden Globe or in other award ceremonies around the world...

The Past (Iran, 2013): An Iranian man deserts his French wife and two children to return to his homeland. Meanwhile, his wife starts up a new relationship, a reality her husband confronts upon his wife's request for a divorce.



Blue is the Warmest Color (France, 2013): Adele's life is changed when she meets Emma, a young woman with blue hair, who will allow her to discover desire, to assert herself as a woman and as an adult. In front of others, Adele grows, seeks herself, loses herself and ultimately finds herself through love and loss.

The Wind Rises (Japan, 2013): An animated look at the life of Jiro Horikoshi, the man who designed Japanese fighter planes during World War II.