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‘The Barbarian Invasions’

Denys Arcand

Denys Arcand won with his French-language Canadian entry “The Barbarian Invasions.” The film follows some of the same characters as “The Decline of the American Empire,” one of his two previous nominated films. It was the first win for a Canadian film.

This year’s award comes amid a flurry of criticism that the nominating process needs to be revamped in much the same way the documentary category was a few years ago.

“City of God,” with no foreign language film nomination last year, got nominations this year in four general categories. Additionally, numerous films that made a stir on the festival circuit were not nominated this year, while a number of the eventual nominees were relative unknowns.