‘Mustang,’ ‘Son of Saul,’ ‘The Fencer’ Make Foreign Language Film Oscar Shortlist

Erik Anderson December 17, 2015

MUSTANG, France’s entry for the Foreign Language Film Oscar, makes the first cut

The 9-film shortlist for the Foreign Language Film Oscar was revealed today and while the expected mentions for Hungary’s Son of Saul and France’s Mustang made the list, Brazil’s The Second Mother was surprisingly left off, as was Taiwan’s The Assassin, Austria’s Goodnight Mommy and Sweden’s A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence. Festival favorite Rams, from Iceland, is also not moving on. Finland’s The Fencer was a surprise inclusion. Viva from Ireland and Theeb from Jordan are also in the running.

[box type=”shadow” align=”alignleft” class=”” width=””]LOS ANGELES, CA – Nine features will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 88th Academy Awards®. Eighty films had originally been considered in the category.[/box]

The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

Belgium, “The Brand New Testament,” Jaco Van Dormael, director

Colombia, “Embrace of the Serpent,” Ciro Guerra, director

Denmark, “A War,” Tobias Lindholm, director

Finland, “The Fencer,” Klaus Härö, director

France, “Mustang,” Deniz Gamze Ergüven, director

Germany, “Labyrinth of Lies,” Giulio Ricciarelli, director

Hungary, “Son of Saul,” László Nemes, director

Ireland, “Viva,” Paddy Breathnach, director

Jordan, “Theeb,” Naji Abu Nowar, director

Foreign Language Film nominations for 2015 are being determined in two phases.

The Phase I committee, consisting of several hundred Los Angeles-based Academy members, screened the original submissions in the category between mid-October and December 14. The group’s top six choices, augmented by three additional selections voted by the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee, constitute the shortlist.

The shortlist will be winnowed down to the category’s five nominees by specially invited committees in New York, Los Angeles and London. They will spend Friday, January 8, through Sunday, January 10, viewing three films each day and then casting their ballots.

The 88th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 14, 2016, at 5:30 a.m. PT at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

The 88th Oscars^® will be held on Sunday, February 28, 2016, at the Dolby Theatre^® at Hollywood & Highland Center^® in Hollywood, and will be televised live by the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. The Oscar^®presentation also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.

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Erik Anderson

Erik Anderson is the founder/owner and Editor-in-Chief of AwardsWatch and has always loved all things Oscar, having watched the Academy Awards since he was in single digits; making lists, rankings and predictions throughout the show. This led him down the path to obsessing about awards. Much later, he found himself in film school and the film forums of GoldDerby, and then migrated over to the former Oscarwatch (now AwardsDaily), before breaking off to create AwardsWatch in 2013.

He is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, accredited by the Cannes Film Festival, Telluride Film Festival, Toronto International Film Festival and more, is a member of the International Cinephile Society (ICS), The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics (GALECA), Hollywood Critics Association (HCA) and the International Press Academy. Among his many achieved goals with AwardsWatch, he has given a platform to underrepresented writers and critics and supplied them with access to film festivals and the industry and calls the Bay Area his home where he lives with his husband and son.