List of submissions to the 78th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film explained
| 2005 Best Foreign Language Film submissions |
| Award1 Type: | Oscar winner |
| Award1 Winner: |  Tsotsi |
| Award2 Type: | Total submissions |
| Award2 Winner: | 63 |
| Award3 Type: | First-time submissions |
| Award3 Winner: | 3 |
| Previous: | 2004 |
| Main: | List |
| Next: | 2006 |
This is a list of submissions to the 78th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film every year since the award was created in 1956. The award is handed out annually by the Academy to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States that contains primarily non-English dialogue. The Foreign Language Film Award Committee oversees the process and reviews all the submitted films.
For the 78th Academy Awards, sixty-two countries submitted films to the Academy, and fifty-eight of those films were accepted for review by the Academy.[1] The submissions of Austria and Greece were rejected before the formal review process and the submissions of Uruguay and Venezuela did not appear in the final list; meanwhile, those from Bolivia, Netherlands, Singapore and Tajikistan were later disqualified by the Academy. Costa Rica, Iraq and Fiji submitted films for the first time. The winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film was South Africa's Tsotsi, which was directed by Gavin Hood.
Submissions
| Submitting country | Film title used in nomination | Original title | Language(s) | Director(s) | Result |
|---|
| El Aura | Spanish | Fabián Bielinsky | |
| Caché | French | Michael Haneke | |
| Shyamol Chhaya | শ্যামল ছায়া | Bengali | Humayun Ahmed | |
| The Child | L'Enfant | French | Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne | |
| Say Good Morning to Dad | Di buen día a papá | Spanish | Fernando Vargas | |
| Totally Personal | Sasvim lično | Serbian, English, Bosnian | Nedžad Begović | |
| Two Sons of Francisco | Dois Filhos de Francisco | Brazilian Portuguese | Breno Silveira | |
| Stolen Eyes | Откраднати очи | Bulgarian, Turkish | Radoslav Spassov | |
| C.R.A.Z.Y. | French | Jean-Marc Vallée | |
| Play | Spanish | Alicia Scherson | |
| The Promise | 无极 | Mandarin | Chen Kaige | |
| La Sombra del Caminante | Spanish | Ciro Guerra | |
| Caribe | Esteban Ramírez | |
| A Wonderful Night in Split | Ta divna splitska noć | Croatian, Serbian, English | Arsen Anton Ostojić | |
| Viva Cuba | Spanish | Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti | |
| Something Like Happiness | Štěstí | Czech | Bohdan Sláma | |
| Adam's Apples | Adams Æbler | Danish | Anders Thomas Jensen | |
| Shop of Dreams | Stiilipidu | Estonian | Peeter Urbla | |
| The Land Has Eyes | Pear ta ma ʻon maf | Rotuman, English | Vilsoni Hereniko | |
| Mother of Mine | Äideistä parhain / Den bästa av mödrar | Finnish, Swedish | Klaus Härö | |
| Joyeux Noël | French, German, English | Christian Carion | |
| Tbilisi-Tbilisi | თბილისი-თბილისი | Georgian | Levan Zakareishvili | |
| Sophie Scholl – The Final Days | Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage | German | Marc Rothemund | |
| Brides[2] | Νύφες | Greek, English | Pantelis Voulgaris | |
| Perhaps Love | 如果·愛 | Cantonese, Mandarin | Peter Ho-Sun Chan | |
| Fateless | Sorstalanság | Hungarian, German, English | Lajos Koltai | |
| Ahead of Time | Í takt við tímann | Icelandic | Ágúst Guðmundsson | |
| Paheli | पहेली | Hindi | Amol Palekar | |
| Gie | Indonesian | Riri Riza | |
| So Close, So Far | خیلی دور، خیلی نزدیک | Persian | Reza Mir Karimi | |
 Iraq | Requiem of Snow | شیوەنی بەفر | Kurdish | Jamil Rostami | |
| What a Wonderful Place | איזה מקום נפלא | Hebrew, Russian,
Filipino, Tagalog, English | Eyal Halfon | |
| Don't Tell | La bestia nel cuore | Italian, English | Cristina Comencini | |
| Blood and Bones | 血と骨 | Japanese, Korean | Yoichi Sai | |
 | Welcome to Dongmakgol | 웰컴 투 동막골 | Korean | Park Kwang-hyun | |
| Renart the Fox | Le Roman de Renart | French | Thierry Schiel | |
| Al otro lado | Spanish, Arabic | Gustavo Loza | |
| The Cave of the Yellow Dog | Шар нохойн там | Mongolian | Byambasuren Davaa | |
| Bluebird | Dutch | Mijke de Jong | |
| Kissed by Winter | Vinterkyss | Norwegian, Swedish, English | Sara Johnsen | |
| Paradise Now | الجنّة الآن | Palestinian Arabic, English | Hany Abu-Assad | |
| Days of Santiago | Días de Santiago | Spanish | Josué Méndez | |
| The Collector | Komornik | Polish | Feliks Falk | |
| Noite Escura | Portuguese, Russian | João Canijo | |
| Cayo | Spanish | Vicente Juarbe | |
| The Death of Mr. Lazarescu | Moartea domnului Lăzărescu | Romanian | Cristi Puiu | |
| The Italian | Итальянец | Russian, Italian, English | Andrei Kravchuk | |
| Midwinter Night's Dream | Сан зимске ноћи | Serbian | Goran Paskaljević | |
| Be with Me | English, Hokkien,
Mandarin, Cantonese | Eric Khoo | |
| The City of the Sun | Slnečný štát | Slovak, Czech | Martin Šulík | |
| Ruins | Ruševine | Slovene | Janez Burger | |
| Tsotsi | Setswana, Zulu, Sesotho, Xhosa, Afrikaans, English | Gavin Hood | |
| Obaba | Spanish | Montxo Armendáriz | |
| Zozo | Swedish, Arabic | Josef Fares | |
| Tout un Hiver sans Feu | French, Albanian | Greg Zglinski | |
| The Wayward Cloud | 天邊一朵雲 | Mandarin | | Tsai Ming-liang | |
| Sex & Philosophy | Ҷинс ва фалсафа | Russian, Tajik | Mohsen Makhmalbaf | |
| The Tin Mine | มหา’ลัย เหมืองแร่ | Thai | Jira Maligool | |
| Lovelorn | Gönül Yarası | Turkish | Yavuz Turgul | |
| Alma Mater | Spanish | Álvaro Buela | |
 | | 1888: El Extraordinario Viaje de la Santa Isabel | Alfredo Anzola | |
| The Buffalo Boy | Mùa len trâu | Vietnamese | Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh | | |
Notes
- Austria's submission, Caché, was disqualified because the film was completely in French, and not in a language indigenous to Austria.
- Bolivia's submission, Say Good Morning to Dad, was disqualified because a print of the film did not arrive at the Academy in time.
- Private was originally selected but the Academy informed Italy that the film would be disqualified for not being in Italian. The Italian Academy appealed the decision, but ended up selecting a new film
- Nepal elected to send Basain, but due to its release date, it was submitted the following year instead.
- The submission of the Netherlands, Bluebird, disqualified because it was too similar to a version previously aired on Dutch television; it was too late to select another Dutch film.
- Paradise Now was submitted as coming from "Palestine", which was used on the web page and the official notices of the Academy. It was announced at the awards ceremony as from "the Palestinian Territories".
- The Philippines failed to send a film for the first time in ten years; their Film Academy claimed they thought they hadn't been invited after the official invitation failed to reach their new address.
- Singapore's submission, Be with Me, was disqualified after its official screening for being mostly in English and not in a Foreign Language
- Tajikistan's submission, Sex & Philosophy, was disqualified because a print of the film did not arrive at the Academy in time
- Uruguay reportedly selected Álvaro Buela's Alma Mater, but it only ended up sent to the Goya Awards.
- Venezuela selected 1888: The Extraordinary Voyage of the Santa Isabel, but their entry was delayed by a lawsuit and they missed the deadline [3]
- Among the other countries which were officially invited to submit a film, but did not, were Afghanistan, Algeria, Australia, Ecuador, Egypt, Lebanon, Macedonia, Malaysia, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.
Notes and References
- 58 Countries Vying for 2005 Foreign Language Film Oscar . . 25 October 2005 . 23 September 2008 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20071224094324/http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2005/05.10.25.html . 24 December 2007 .
- Web site: With National Pride at Stake, Foreign Language Films Compete for Oscar Glory . 16 November 2005 .
- Web site: Secuestro Express director sued in Venezuela Business News . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20051103201651/http://vcrisis.com/index.php?content=pr/200511020640 . 2005-11-03 . vcrisis.com.
