A shortlist of entries for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award has been released, with nine picked out of a field of 87 submissions.
The list is led by Alfonso Cuarón's Roma, which is in the unusual position of being in heavy contention for the Foreign Language award and also for Best Picture. No film in a language other than English has ever won the top prize for Best Picture.
Other contenders include Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War and Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters, the former having missed out on a Golden Globe nomination. Lee Chang-dong’s Burning also made the list.
Golden Globe nominee Girl, by Belgium’s Lukas Dhont, did not make it onto the shortlist, following heavy criticism of the film over its depiction of the trans experience by a cis actor and cis director, which has been branded "irresponsible" and "dangerous".
Also failing to make the cut is Sweden's Border, a fantasy film set in a border agency.
The Phase I Foreign Language voting group decides on six titles for the shortlist, while the Executive Committee selects three further films.
From the nine currently on the shortlist, the five nominees will be revealed on 22 January, alongside the rest of the Oscar nominations.
Here’s the full list of nine shortlisted movies:
Birds Of Passage (Colombia), dirs.: Cristina Gallego/Ciro Guerra
The Guilty (Denmark), dir: Gustav Moller
Never Look Away (Germany), dir: Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
Shoplifters (Japan), dir: Hirokazu Kore-eda
Ayka (Kazakhstan), dir: Sergei Dvortsevoy
Capernaum (Lebanon), dir: Nadine Labaki
Roma (Mexico), dir: Alfonso Cuarón
Cold War (Poland), dir: Pawel Pawlikowski
Burning (Korea), dir: Lee Chang-dong
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