90th Academy Awards Foreign Language Films Submissions

10/6/17 Update - AMPAS surprised many of us with what we can call an early release of the submitted and accepted films to the foreign language film category as usually takes them 10 days or more to announce the complete list. But more interesting is the amount of countries that had films accepted, a new record (!) with 92 submitting films this year, which are seven (7) more countries/films than last year's 85.

There are too many great films in list and too-many films, period. Hopefully new "simplified" process will allow more films to be seen by more people, but believe is just a hope as know that films with strong promotion will have better chances than those without it. Already have received several invitations to private screenings in LA and yes are for films from the great filmmakers as this year list has several master filmmakers like Haneke, Akin, Ostlund, Martel, Roskam, Holland, Lelio, Bartas, Trier, and Zvyagintsev plus perhaps lesser known but already collected great accolades like Alain Gomis, Annemarie Jacir, Mijke de Jong, Jonas Carpignano, Ildiko Enyedi and Robin Campillo. Missing is Kaurismaki, but we know he's against all this fuzz and buzz, sigh.

Yes, list is impressive from the great-cinema point-of-view and there are many must-be-seen films for our cinematic enjoyment and pleasure. But we all know what the Academy likes and celebrates not always is what deserves the honor so in that sense, my hopes are not too high. Nevertheless by the end of December we will learn the nine (9) films in the shortlist from where the five nominations will come and perhaps this year AMPAS foreign-language film committee will surprise us with ONLY great choices.