Foreign Policy Under Fire

Sometimes, there may be such a thing as being too fair.

In its effort to level the playing field for international cinema, critics contend the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ process for selecting the best foreign-language film is flawed, from submission through the rigorous screening program to select the five nominees.

“It’s very discouraging,” says one longtime foreign film committee member. “The academy says it’s set up to be fair to everyone. And their motives are honorable. But at the same time it’s an unfair situation.”

The policy of one film per country has always generated complaints. Critics believe it is unfair to nations with mature film industries like France, Italy and Japan. But academy executive director Bruce Davis calls such carping frivolous.

“A country with a huge industry should have a huge advantage,” he says. For Davis, a larger problem is ensuring that the film submitted by each country is chosen for artistic merit and not for political reasons. “We prefer that the selecting body mirror the academy, that the films are chosen by people who make movies rather than ministers of culture.”

A more practical issue is the selection process itself, which because it involves seeing so many films in a concentrated time frame is often limited to “the unemployed or the retired,” according to one foreign film committee member.

Because the makeup of the committee is older and more conservative, critics contend, it sometimes errs on the side of sentimentality.

That gripe is often borne out by each year’s five final qualifiers. Four of this year’s five nominees are about children (Iran’s “Children of Heaven”) or senior citizens (Spain’s “The Grandfather”), or the relationship of children to adults (Italy’s “Life Is Beautiful,” Brazil’s “Central Station”). Recent foreign-language Oscar winners have included “Kolya” and “Burnt by the Sun,” both of which dealt with the relationship of older adults to children.

Because of the committee’s makeup, some of the more daring and highly regarded films submitted this year--like Denmark’s “The Celebration,” France’s “The Dreamlife of Angels” and Germany’s “Run Lola Run”--didn’t make the cut.

Again, Davis disagrees. “These complaints are the same ones we have with all the specialized categories,” says Davis. (The documentaries, films and short films are also selected by volunteer committees.) “This year we had more than 200 people selecting the foreign films, the highest of any category outside of best picture [which all members get to select] and the four acting categories” (the acting branch is the academy’s largest).

And voters in both those categories, he points out, need not have seen all the eligible films.

The academy’s awards coordinator, Patrick Stockstill, says that about 450 members (out of a total of 5,700 members) volunteered to see the 44 films eligible this year.

“The voters tend to be older because they have more time to put into it,” Stockstill concedes, but “we do get new people and younger people every year who want to serve.”

Being on the foreign film committee does require a great deal of devotion, which explains why less than half the volunteers make it through the screening process.

Voters are divided into two teams, each of which views 22 films. To qualify, each member must view at least 18 (more than 80%) of the films. The screenings were held on the East and West coasts between the first week in December and the first week in February with a brief recess for the Christmas holidays. The submitted films are screened once as part of a double bill, on evenings and weekends. Says one committee member, “it’s hard not to fall asleep during the second feature, especially if you’ve worked all day.”

Films already in release or those that have secured a distributor are available for additional screenings. Members can cross over to vote on films from the other team provided they’ve met the minimum requirements of their own team. The voting is calculated by weighted average divided by the number of voters who have seen the particular film.

The more stalwart members end up seeing as many as five double bills a week.

“It can be a grueling process,” says past panel member Marcus Hu, principal of Strand Releasing. “I’m used to it because I attend a lot of film festivals, but for those who don’t, the process can wear them down.”

Marketing consultant Bruce Feldman, who has been on the nominating committee for 10 years, argues that if the screening schedule were not as concentrated, it might be more inviting to the general membership.

“If the academy could extend the period of time the members have to see all the films by restructuring the qualifying deadlines [Oct. 31 is now the cutoff date] it could be a lot more productive,” says Feldman.

Davis says moving up the qualification deadline would make the eligible crop even less reflective of the films released in a given country during the current calendar year. Also, the academy theater is heavily booked and wouldn’t always be available.

Unlike American-made films, the foreign-language film submissions cannot be viewed on video either in the nomination phase or the final selection. Davis is vague about exactly why, except to say it might stretch the honor system to its limits. But according to producer Mark Johnson, the committee’s co-chair, there are several arguments against videocassettes, the most prominent being the difficulty of reading subtitles on the small screen. It would also require that the academy ensure that all tapes were the theatrical versions.

Complaints sometimes have extended beyond the rigors of the process to the particulars.

Academy rules require that a significant portion of a film’s creative team come from the submitting country, which critics have contended is unrealistic as international co-productions proliferate. Not that those rules are never bent.

For 1993 entries, the requirement was relaxed for three Asian-themed films. Taiwan’s entry “The Wedding Banquet” was shot in New York, Vietnam’s “The Scent of Green Papaya” was filmed in France and “Farewell My Concubine” was shot in China but was submitted by Hong Kong, where it was financed and where many of its production team were born.

Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “Red,” however, was disqualified from 1994’s competition because although the submitting nation Switzerland financed the film, none of the major creative team was Swiss. Kieslowski was Polish.

A 1992 nominee from Uruguay, “A Place in the World,” was disqualified when the academy discovered that the only native talent were the costume designer and a fifth-billed actor.

In the meantime, Davis says he has grown increasingly impatient with these complaints. “We’re still getting some 200 voters from all 13 branches of the academy selecting the foreign films. The people who are making these observations have never administered anything in their lives. It’s working pretty well.”