Nine foreign language films advance to next round of voting in 90th Oscar race

LOS ANGELES, Dec 15 (Xinhua/APP):Nine features will advance to the next round of voting in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the 90th Academy Awards, or the Oscars, organizers said.
Among 92 films originally being considered in the category, nine are listed for the next round, namely Chile’s “A Fantastic Woman,” Germany’s “In the Fade,” Hungary’s “On Body and Soul,” Israel’s “Foxtrot,” Lebanon’s “The Insult,” Russia’s “Loveless,” Senegal’s “Felicite,” South Africa’s “The Wound” and Sweden’s “The Square.”
“A Fantastic Woman,” “In the Fade,” “Loveless” and “The Square” have been nominated earlier this week for best foreign language film in the 75th Golden Globes.
Three Chinese-language films in the Best Foreign Film competition did not make it to the next round, including the action blockbuster “Wolf Warrior II,” which has become the highest-grossing Chinese film ever released.
This year’s foreign language film nominations are determined in two phases, said the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, which organizes the Academy Awards.
In the first phase, a committee consisting of Los Angeles-based Academy members screened the original submissions in the category between mid-October and Dec. 11. The group’s top six choices, augmented by three additional selections chosen by the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee, constitute the shortlist.
Academy members eligible to participate in the nominations round of voting in New York, London, Los Angeles and, for the first time, the San Francisco Bay Area, will screen the nine shortlisted films in theaters over a three-day period from Jan. 12 to Jan. 14, with three films screened each day, and winnow down the shortlist to five nominees.
Nominations for the 90th Academy Awards will be announced on Jan. 23, 2018, and the ceremony will be held on March 4 at Hollywood’s Dolby Theater in the western U.S. city of Los Angeles.