Oscars 2010: ‘best foreign language film’ nominations
Monday, 22nd February 2010
The nominations for this year’s Oscars, scheduled to take place on Sunday March 7, have now been announced.
There are scores of categories to cover in the proceedings, but one which seems to attract more interest every year is that of ‘best foreign language film’.
Although the best foreign language film category has been included in the Oscars for a long time (since 1956), there is no doubt that world cinema now enjoys a much more mainstream existence, and that, as a result, it is becoming accessible to a much wider audience.
In fact, some of the more recent winners of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar have proved to be amongst the most popular and successful films of the year - not only on a local scale, but on a global one too.
Some previous winners that have enjoyed huge popularity around the world are:
- La vita è bella (1998)
- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)
- The Lives of Others (2006)
This year’s list of worthy nominations features films from a wide range of countries - Israel, Argentina, Peru, France and Germany. Here’s a run-down of the titles, and a brief synopsis of each film:
Ajami (Israel)
Ajami won the Ophir Award (the Israeli Oscar) in September 2009, which made it Israel’s official entry for the Oscars. Made by Israeli and Palestinian co-directors, it is set in Jaffa’s multiethnic Ajami neighbourhood, and follows five different stories that come together to paint a picture of everyday life there.
El Secreto de Sus Ojos (Argentina)
Translated into English as ‘The Secret In Their Eyes’, this film won the Goya Awards, the Spanish equivalent to the Oscars for best movie of 2009. The film’s principal character is Benjamin Esposito, a recently retired criminal court employee. Upon retiring, he decides to write a novel and uses his direct experience of a 1970’s court case for inspiration…
The Milk of Sorrow (Peru)
2009 winner of the Golden Bear award at the prestigious Berlin Film Festival, the Milk of Sorrow centres around the wartime traumas of many Peruvian women, and the ‘folk’ belief that these horrific experiences are passed on to their daughters through breastfeeding (hence the title).
Un Prophète (France)
A brutal prison drama which has attracted universal acclaim, ‘Un Prophète’ tells the story of Malik, a young French Arab, who finds himself alone in a prison dominated by a ruthless Corsican gang. In a rites-of-passage type scenario, he is forced by the ‘kingpin’ to murder a new ally, but afterwards begins to build a power base of his own.
The White Ribbon (Germany)
Das weiße Band, as it is known in German, won the coveted Palme D’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival. The film is set a rural village in northern Germany over several months, ending on the eve of World War One. The plot centres around a speight of unusual and violent occurrences in the village, although the underlying theme of the film relates to repression and violence within society…
Have you seen any of these films? If so, please let us know your views!
More on German courses in Germany
More on French courses in France
More on Spanish courses in Spain and Argentina
More on foreign language evening courses in the UK and North America
Tags: oscars, film, language, argentina, germany, festival, france, german, french, spanish, english
Posted by Laura Harrison 2010-02 under Experience Cultures, Movies,
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