TOPLINE March 2019 #3

The “Foreign Language Films” category has first entered The Academy of
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1945, i.e. 15 years past the broadcast
of the first Academy Awards ceremony. However, industries of various
countries have officially started
being invited to annually apply
since 1956, with the creation
of a competitive Academy
Award of Merit named the
Best Foreign Language Film
Award. And since then, at least
one Academy Award would
go to a Foreign Language
Film annually in each of the
ceremonies. Designing a
criterion for the category, The
Academy defines a foreign
language film as “a featurelength
motion picture (above
40 minutes) produced outside
the United States of America
with a predominantly non-English dialogue track”.
It is often that the audience are taken by the allure of the moment
and the glamour of the event that they pay little thought to the
cumbersome process behind the most cosmopolitan category of the
ceremony. For a foreign language film to make its way to the Academy
Award competition, it has to go through a multi-layered process. Each
country is invited to submit
what it considers its best
film. The selection is made by
an approved organization,
jury or committee. In
the case of Jordan, the
Royal Film Commission
is the official submitting
organization; it nominates
a selection committee to
choose among the films
submitted by various
producers. Worth noting,
that the motion picture
must have been released
in the country submitting it
and showcased for at least
seven consecutive days. In addition, “the submitting country must
certify that creative control of the motion picture was largely in the
hands of citizens or residents of that country.”
25