Palestinian Film among Oscar Nominees
A tale of tragic romance from the Palestinian territories is among five nominees for best foreign-language film at the Academy Awards.
The contenders announced Thursday in Beverly Hills include Hany Abu-Assad's "Omar," the story of a love affair and its consequences against the backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Abu-Assad, an Israeli-born director of Palestinian descent, previously earned an Oscar nomination for his 2005 film "Paradise Now."
Felix van Groeningen's "The Broken Circle Breakdown" — about a music-loving couple facing the serious illness of their child is also nominated.
Denmark's Thomas Vinterberg is nominated for "The Hunt," a tense drama about a teacher, played by Mads Mikkelsen, whose comfortable small-town life is destroyed when he is wrongly accused of child abuse.
Mikkelsen — who played Bond villain Le Chiffre in "Casino Royale" — won the best-actor prize at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival for his performance.
"This is a little duckling of a film that has grown into becoming a beautiful swan," said Peter Aalbaek Jensen, manager of Zentropa Film, the company behind "The Hunt."
The other foreign-language nominees are Italian director Paolo Sorrentino's bittersweet love letter to Rome, "The Great Beauty"; and "The Missing Picture," in which Cambodia's Rithy Panh explores the legacy of Pol Pot's bloody dictatorship.
Panh's film, based on his nightmarish memoir "The Elimination," documents his own family's experience under the Khmer Rouge, which resulted in the deaths of his parents and sisters.
It won top prize in the "Un Certain Regard" sidebar competition at last year's Cannes festival.
Winners of the 86th Oscars will be announced March 2 during a ceremony at Hollywood's Dolby Theater.
Source: Associated Press
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