Academy Foreign Film Rules Hot Topic : Movies: Talk at annual luncheon for foreign directors points out chronic difficulty of having to accept whatever film each foreign country submits as its official entry.

After the directors of the five Oscar-nominated foreign films participated in a jam-packed symposium Saturday morning in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Samuel Goldwyn Theater they were treated to a luncheon at Le Dome Restaurant attended by members of the directors’ branch of the academy.

At this annual event, camaraderie is the order of the day, as notable filmmakers from all around the world can meet, commiserate and congratulate each other on successes past and present.

In this spirit, Saturday’s lunch was no different from its dozen or so predecessors, but this time its host, director George Schaefer, who had moderated the lively symposium, and screenwriter Fay Kanin, who is the chair of the academy’s foreign language committee, brought up a crucial issue that had not surfaced earlier in the public forum.

Having noted that, “This is really what the academy is all about: people talking to each other,” Kanin addressed the chronic difficulty of having to accept whatever film each foreign country submits as its official entry into the Oscar sweepstakes. “We don’t want to be the judges of what films are to be submitted,” she said.

“What we want is a level playing field: one country represented by one film--no matter how small that country might be.” She added that she’s open to suggestions from anyone that might ensure that the best picture from its country be submitted to the academy; it was quickly suggested that there might be a “mixed category” for such international co-productions as Kryzsztof Kieslowksi’s “Red,” which was disqualified for best foreign film.

According to Schaefer, had China been willing to submit Zhang Yimou’s “To Live” and had “Red” not been axed as a Swiss entry--the argument being that Switzerland was its setting but was not otherwise significantly involved in its production--the list of five nominated films might well have been different. Had those films been eligible, said Schaefer candidly to the foreign directors, it would have been “much more difficult” for their films to have been nominated.

Even so, it is widely agreed that the five nominated films are an exceptionally strong selection: Milcho Manchevski’s “Before the Rain” (Republic of Macedonia), a highly political three-episode drama of love and tragedy; Nikita Mikhalkov’s “Burnt by the Sun” (Russia), a summer afternoon’s Chekhovian idyll destroyed in an instant by a Stalinist whim; Ang Lee’s “Eat Drink Man Woman” (Taiwan), a warm comedy involving a legendary Taipei chef and his three adult daughters; Gerard Corbiau’s “Farinelli: Il Castrato” (Belgium), a tempestuous consideration of the life of the 18th Century’s most celebrated castrato singer; and Tomas Gutierrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio’s “Strawberry and Chocolate” (Cuba), a story of the friendship between a gay man and a straight man told against the political realities of 1979 Havana.