List of Afghan submissions for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

Afghanistan has submitted films for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film ^{[nb 1]} since 2002, following the fall of the country's previous Taliban government. The award is handed out annually by the United States Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States that contains primarily non-English dialogue. ^[3] It was not created until the 1956 Academy Awards, in which a competitive Academy Award of Merit, known as the Best Foreign Language Film Award, was created for non-English speaking films, and has been given annually since. ^[4]

As of 2019 ^[update] , fourteen Afghan films have been submitted for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film, but none of them have been nominated for an Oscar.

Submissions

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film since 1956. ^[4] The Foreign Language Film Award Committee oversees the process and reviews all the submitted films. Following this, they vote via secret ballot to determine the five nominees for the award. ^[3] Below is a list of the films that have been submitted by Afghanistan for review by the academy for the award by year and the respective Academy Awards ceremony.

Year (Ceremony)	Film title used in nomination	Original title	Language(s)	Director(s)	Result
2002 (75th)	FireDancer		Dari, English	Jawed Wassel	Not nominated
2003 (76th)	Osama	أسامة	Dari	Siddiq Barmak	Not nominated
2004 (77th)	Earth and Ashes	خاکستر و خاک	Dari, Pashto	Atiq Rahimi	Not nominated
2008 (81st)	Opium War	جنگ تریاک	Dari, English	Siddiq Barmak	Not nominated
2009 (82nd)	16 Days in Afghanistan		Pashto, English, Dari	Anwar Hajher	Not nominated
2010 (83rd)	The Black Tulip [5]	لاله سیاه	Dari, Pashto, English, Arabic, Italian	Sonia Nassery Cole	Not nominated [6] [7]
2012 (85th)	The Patience Stone [8]	سنگ صبور	Persian	Atiq Rahimi	Not nominated
2013 (86th)	Wajma (An Afghan Love Story) [9]	وژمه	Dari	Barmak Akram	Not nominated
2014 (87th)	A Few Cubic Meters of Love [10]	چند متر مکعب عشق	Persian, Dari	Jamshid Mahmoudi	Not nominated
2015 (88th)	Utopia [11]	آرمان شهر	Dari, English, Hindi, Persian	Hassan Nazer	Disqualified [12]
2016 (89th)	Parting [13]	رفتن	Persian, Dari	Navid Mahmoudi	Not on the final list [14]
2017 (90th)	A Letter to the President [15]	نامه‌ای به رییس‌جمهور	Dari	Roya Sadat	Not nominated
2018 (91st)	Rona, Azim's Mother [16]	رونا مادر عظیم	Persian, Dari	Jamshid Mahmoudi	Not nominated
2019 (92nd)	Hava, Maryam, Ayesha [17]	حوا، مریم، عایشه		Sahraa Karimi	Disqualified [18]

• FireDancer was Afghanistan's first-ever Oscar submission. The film, about the Afghan-American diaspora in New York City, was filmed primarily in English with some scenes in Dari. In order to fulfill AMPAS requirements, the film held screenings in two venues in Kabul- a newly reopened cinema, and a stadium that was previously used by the Taliban for executions. ^[19] The print used for the Afghan screenings as well as that submitted to the academy was dubbed entirely into Dari. The film's writer-director Jawed Wassel, an Afghan-American who had received asylum in the United States in the 1980s, was brutally murdered while the film was in post-production. ^[20] The film's producer Nathan Powell pleaded guilty to the crime. ^[21]
• Osama, about a young girl forced to pose as a boy in order to work and support her family under the brutal Taliban regime was considered an early favorite for an Oscar nomination after winning the Golden Globe award for Best Foreign Language Film, but it ultimately failed to be nominated.
• Earth and Ashes, directed by France-based dual Afghan-French citizen Atiq Rahimi, was a drama about an old man and his grandson on a long journey to inform the man's son of tragic news.
• 16 Days in Afghanistan, despite its positive reception in both Afghanistan and in the west was unable to participate as it did not meet some of the qualifications.
• The Opium War, a black comedy featuring a mixed American and Afghan cast, was about the uneasy interaction between two downed American soldiers and an Afghan family of poppy growers. The film reunited Osama director Siddiq Barmak and the titular lead of that film, Marina Golbahari.

In 2009, A British documentary filmed in Afghanistan in languages native to Afghanistan, (Afghan Star) was selected to represent the United Kingdom.

See also

• List of Academy Award winners and nominees for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of Academy Award-winning foreign language films
• Cinema of Afghanistan

Notes

1. The category was previously named the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but this was changed to the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film in April 2019, after the Academy deemed the word "Foreign" to be outdated. ^{[1] [2]}

References

1. "Academy announces rules for 92nd Oscars". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 23 April 2019. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
2. "Academy Announces Rule Changes For 92nd Oscars". Forbes. Retrieved 12 July 2019.
3. "Rule Thirteen: Special Rules for the Foreign Language Film Award". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 22 August 2013. Retrieved 26 August 2013.
4. "History of the Academy Awards - Page 2". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 22 June 2008. Retrieved 21 August 2008.
5. "Afghan Oscar contender aims to show more than war". reuters. 23 September 2010. Archived from the original on 22 September 2020. Retrieved 28 September 2010.
6. "2010-2011 Foreign Language Film Award Screening Schedule". The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 20 December 2010.
7. "9 Foreign Language Films Continue to Oscar® Race". oscars.org. Retrieved 19 January 2011.
8. "Oscars: The Patience Stone chosen to be the Afghan entry!". Le Pacte . Archived from the original on 28 October 2012. Retrieved 30 September 2012.
9. "Wajma, an Afghan love story". Afghan Culture Museum. Retrieved 1 October 2013.
10. "Iranian-Afghan movie submitted to Oscar". Iran Daily. Retrieved 13 September 2014.
11. Ramachandran, Naman (23 September 2015). "Afghanistan Chooses 'Utopia' for the Oscars". Variety. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
12. Feinberg, Scott (15 November 2015). "Oscars: Academy Disqualifies Afghan Foreign Language Entry 'Utopia'". Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 22 September 2018.
13. Bhushan, Nyay (12 September 2016). "Oscars: Afghanistan Selects 'Raftan' for Foreign-Language Category". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved 12 September 2016.
14. "85 Countries In Competition For 2016 Foreign Language Film Oscar". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . 11 October 2016. Retrieved 11 October 2016.
15. Fratter, Patrick (26 September 2017). "Afghanistan Sends 'A Letter' to Oscars". Variety. Retrieved 26 September 2017.
16. "Afghanistan sends Afghan-Iranian movie "Rona, Azim's Mother" to Oscars". The Tehran Times. 9 October 2018. Retrieved 9 October 2018.
17. McNary, Dave (27 September 2019). "Oscars: Afghanistan Chooses Hava, Maryam, Ayesha for International Feature Film Entry". Variety. Retrieved 27 September 2019.
18. Pedersen, Erik (7 October 2019). "Oscars: 93 Countries In Running For International Feature Film Race". Deadline.com. Retrieved 7 October 2019.
19. http://www.voanews.com/english/archive/2003-07/a-2003-07-09-42-Friends.cfm?moddate=2003-07-09%5B%5D
20. Smith, Dinitia (2 October 2002). "Tragedy Haunts Film on Afghan Diaspora; Friends of a Murdered Filmmaker Struggle to Finish His Work". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 7 March 2016. Retrieved 8 May 2010.
21. "U.S. Film Producer - Nathan Powell - Pleads Guilty to Beheading His Own Director - 8 June 2003". Archived from the original on 17 July 2011. Retrieved 16 May 2009.

External links

• The Official Academy Awards Database
• The Motion Picture Credits Database
• IMDb Academy Awards Page