Academy Changes the Rules for Foreign-Language Films

When the film “A Place in the World” was disqualified earlier this year as a nominee for the best foreign-language Oscar, the reason cited was that the film submitted by Uruguay was, in fact, predominantly made by Argentine talent.

With that recent squabble in mind, the foreign-language film committee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has changed some of its guidelines to avoid similar confusion in the future.

Primarily, the committee is now going to stipulate that at least two out of the three people in key creative categories--director, writer, producer--must be citizens of the nation submitting the film for an Oscar nomination.

In the case of “A Place in the World,” the academy’s foreign-language film committee determined, after the nominations were announced, that most of the talent came from Argentina. The committee learned that when the Argentine film officials decided to submit another movie as Argentina’s official entry, the producers of “A Place in the World,” some of whom were said to be from Uruguay, turned to that nation to submit it. Uruguay had never before submitted a film for Oscar consideration.

When word got out about the situation, it was after the Oscar nominations had been announced. The foreign-language film committee rescinded the nomination--the first time in the 65-year history of the Oscars that a nomination had been removed.

The new rules are an effort to help the national committees make their selections. “What happened in the case of ‘A Place in the World’ was that we had to go out after the fact and determine whether the credits made the film Uruguayan,” said Fay Kanin, the chair of the foreign-language film committee.

The rules also stipulate that a “substantial portion” of the actors must also be from the country of origin, Kanin said.

But attorney Edward S. Labowitz, who represented filmmaker Adolfo Aristarain, the director of “A Place in the World” said the new rules do not take into account the reality that many films are multinational. “I’m really pleased that the Academy realized that their old rules didn’t work. But in a time when foreign films are being produced as co-productions, they now have a rule that will exclude many more movies.”

Labowitz said the new guidelines “fly in the face of what foreign filmmaking is.”

“The reality is that most foreign films are written and directed by the director,” he said. “Therefore only that person’s native country would be considered. . . . Today, elements of many countries are combined into one film.”

The controversy over “A Place in the World” was not the first over eligibilities in the foreign-language film competition, which requires a committee in each country to select that country’s sole submission.

In an incident earlier this year, Kanin admonished the foreign-language film committee’s 300 members to avoid attending a party given by the Spanish Consul General in Los Angeles on behalf of Spain’s official entry, “The Fencing Master.” While some members chose to avoid the party, thinking it may give an appearance of conflict of interest, other members did attend. In the end, the film was not a nominee.