While the 2012 Academy Award nominations for Best Picture have left some confused and others shouting "misogyny", the Israeli director Joseph Cedar called it “a great year for foreign film at the Oscar.”
Cedar, whose film "Footnote" earned him his second Best Foreign Language film nomination, is part of the list of five foreign filmmakers all vying for the prize.
None of the historic top 15 performers in the category were nominated this year, and the only country in the running to have won an Oscar in the past is Canada, which has been nominated five times overall and won in 2003 for "The Barbarian Invasions." Among the 2012 contenders, Israel has had the most total nominations with 10, but has never won.
Bullhead (Belgium)
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The debut feature from writer/director Michael R. Roskam is a dark crime thriller that deal with "the cattle mafia" and hormone dealing.
"[Bullhead] was written so it could be appreciated all over the world, even if the theme of the cattle mafia is extremely Belgian,” producer Bart Van Langendonck told The Associated Press.
The movie has been making its way around the international festival scene and has already won awards, a distribution deal and rave reviews at events like the Austin Fantastic Fest and the Motovun Film Festival in Croatia.
Footnote (Israel)
The film is about a rivalry: a rivalry between two Talmudic scholars who also happen to be father and son. Both have have dedicated their lives to their work and become adversaries when the balance of power shift within their department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"'Footnote' is the story of insane competition, the admiration and envy for a role model, bringing father and son to a final, bitter confrontation," Cedar, who was nominated in the same category in 2007 for his film "Beaufort," explained.
"It is the smallest department in the university, but it is famous worldwide for its uncompromising methods, and its unforgiving attitude toward the notion of 'mistake.' Once I started hearing stories from within this department, about mythological rivalries between scholars, stubbornness on an epic scale, eccentric professors who live with an academic mission that is bigger than life itself, even if its topic is radically esoteric, I fell in love with them all, and they became the center of this story."
Lior Ashkenazi, who plays the son, called the subject matter "the most drab thing that could be,” but the Academy and critics seem to disagree. "Footnote" cleaned up in Israel's biggest film awards and won the Best Screenplay Award at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.
