The academy finally gets it right

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The motion picture academy announced a new set of rules today that could help it avoid another disastrous year in its foreign-language film selections. Until now, the academy has racked up embarrassment after embarrassment as it has either ignored or disqualified some of the best-made films before they could compete for the foreign-language film Oscar. In 2005, the academy refused to accept ‘Cache,’ a brilliant drama that was one of the year’s best-reviewed films, because it was submitted by Austria but its dialogue was in French. In 2004, ‘Maria Full of Grace,’ another beautifully directed film, was rejected for similar language issues.

But last year was the academy’s lowest ebb of all. First, it refused to accept ‘The Band’s Visit,’ a wildly popular Israeli film, because more than 50% of its dialogue was in English--something of a prerequisite, something the film focused on: an Egyptian police band’s sojourn to Israel, where English was the only common language. (For all the gory details, read this account .) Then, when voting time arrived, the academy’s foreign-language committee eyeballed Romania’s ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, winner of a zillion critic awards along with the Golden Palm at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival (see clip above)--and promptly left it off nine-film short list that generates the five foreign-language finalists.

Producer Mark Johnson, the long-suffering chairman of the academy’s foreign-language film selection committee, has acknowledged that the dumb moves gave the academy a black eye and promised to make changes. Today he emerged a victor. ‘This is a huge, gigantic improvement,’ Johnson said, on the phone from London, where he was at the British premiere of his film, ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian.’ ‘It should prevent what happened last year from happening again, when we ended up picking very safe, unimaginative films.’

Here’s what it looks like:

Up until now, one general committee picked the nine short-listed films, which were then screened by a second select committee of working filmmakers, who picked the five finalists. This year, the general committee, known in academy parlance as the Phase 1 committee, will pick only six films. The foreign-language film executive committee will choose three additional films, ensuring that any obvious stand-outs aren’t ignored.

A Phase 2 committee, made up of 30-or-so different filmmakers, will screen the nine films and vote on five finalists. That’s a lot of committees, but if it helps the academy finally make the right call, we won’t complain. ‘I’m confident that it will really make a difference,’ says Johnson, who says he’s already got a congratulatory call from Sony Pictures Classics co-chief Michael Barker, who has probably had more of his films disqualified or ignored than everyone else combined in recent years. ‘He was very happy and so am I,’ Johnson said. ‘We want to see the best films get the chance to compete and this looks like the best way to do it.’