Afghan entry for the Academy Award dropped

KABUL (SW): Parting; an Afghan-Iranian drama film directed by Navid Mahmoudi, which was selected as the Afghan entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards, has been dropped from the list.

The film has not been included on the final list of 85 submissions published by the Academy. Without much details, the Academy has said that the dropped films did not meet the criteria. As of 2016, eleven Afghan films have been submitted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film but none of them have been nominated for an Oscar.

Yemen is competing for an Academy Award for best foreign language film for the first time, one of 85 countries submitting entries including Paul Verhoeven’s “Elle” and Pedro Almodovar’s “Julieta,” organizers announced Tuesday.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which presents the Oscars, will consider Yemeni director Khadija al-Salami’s “I Am Nojoom, Age 10 and Divorced”—which explores the culture of child brides—it said in a statement.

The entries for Best Foreign Language Film also include Dutch director Verhoeven’s “Elle”, a transgressive thriller starring French actress Isabelle Huppert, and “Afterimage”, by the legendary Polish director Andrzej Wajda, who died Sunday.

Mexico’s Jonas Cuaron, son of star director Alfonso Cuaron, directed his country’s entry, the thriller “Desierto,” while Spain entered Almodovar’s “Julieta,” a vibrant portrait of a woman confronting crisis.

Switzerland submitted the animated “My Life as a Zucchini,” by Claude Barras, and Italy sent Gianfranco Rosi’s “Fire at Sea,” a documentary about migrants’ lives, focusing on the Italian island of Lampedusa.

The academy will make a preliminary cut later this year before announcing five finalists in January. The 89th Oscars ceremony is set for February 26, 2017.

ENDS