Warrior Wounded

A record number of submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar have made their way to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences this year. A total of 54 films await the judges' attention, including first-time submissions from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Chad. However, it is the films not on the list that have been the cause of disgruntled grumblings. Asif Kapadia's excellent debut, The Warrior received a swift kick to the unmentionables when it was denied submission as a UK film because Hindi is not a language indigenous to the United Kingdom. The Academy committee voted down Kapadia's film on linguistic grounds, also citing the fact that the film was not about the Hindu community in the UK to drive the point home. A film that would doubtless have been a hot contender for the gong, The Warrior's omission must come as a heavy blow to Kapadia, having subsequently been replaced by Tim Lyn's Eldra, a Welsh language coming-of-age drama. Michelle Yeoh-starring The Touch, was also given the thumbs-down, denied its place in the line-up because most of the dialogue is in English and not Mandarin and subsequently leaving Hong Kong without an entry. The final snub went to acclaimed Palestinian drama, Divine Intervention, which failed to make the cut because the Academy does not recognise Palestine as a nation.