Algeria has submitted films for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film since 1969. 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. [1] 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. [2]
Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. The capital and most populous city is Algiers, located in the far north of the country on the Mediterranean coast. With an area of 2,381,741 square kilometres (919,595 sq mi), Algeria is the tenth-largest country in the world, the world's largest Arab country, and the largest in Africa. Algeria is bordered to the northeast by Tunisia, to the east by Libya, to the west by Morocco, to the southwest by the Western Saharan territory, Mauritania, and Mali, to the southeast by Niger, and to the north by the Mediterranean Sea. The country is a semi-presidential republic consisting of 48 provinces and 1,541 communes (counties). It has the highest human development index of all non-island African countries.
The United States of America (USA), commonly known as the United States or America, is a country comprising 50 states, a federal district, five major self-governing territories, and various possessions. At 3.8 million square miles, the United States is the world's third or fourth largest country by total area and is slightly smaller than the entire continent of Europe's 3.9 million square miles. With a population of over 327 million people, the U.S. is the third most populous country. The capital is Washington, D.C., and the most populous city is New York City. Most of the country is located contiguously in North America between Canada and Mexico.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization with the stated goal of advancing the arts and sciences of motion pictures. The Academy's corporate management and general policies are overseen by a Board of Governors, which includes representatives from each of the craft branches.
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As of 2019 [update] , four Algerian films have been nominated for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and one of these films, Costa-Gavras' Z , has won the award. [3] The other two directors to have Algerian films accepted as nominees are Ettore Scola and Rachid Bouchareb. Scola's Le Bal was accepted as a nominee at the 56th Academy Awards. [4] Bouchareb has had two films accepted as nominees: Dust of Life at the 68th Academy Awards and Days of Glory at the 79th Academy Awards, but neither of his other submissions were accepted as nominees. [5]
Costa-Gavras is a Greek-French film director and producer who lives and works in France. He is known for films with overt political themes, such as the thriller Z (1969), but he has also made comedies. Most of his movies have been made in French; however, six were made in English: Missing (1982), Hanna K. (1983), Betrayed (1988), Music Box (1989), Mad City (1997), and Amen. (2002). He produces most of his films himself, through his production company K.G. Productions.
Z is a 1969 Algerian-French epic political thriller film directed by Costa-Gavras, with a screenplay by Gavras and Jorge Semprún, based on the 1966 novel of the same name by Vassilis Vassilikos. The film presents a thinly fictionalized account of the events surrounding the assassination of democratic Greek politician Grigoris Lambrakis in 1963. With its satirical view of Greek politics, its dark sense of humor, and its downbeat ending, the film captures the outrage about the military dictatorship that ruled Greece at the time of its making.
Ettore Scola was an Italian screenwriter and film director. He received a Golden Globe for Best Foreign Film in 1978 for his film A Special Day and over the course of his film career was nominated for five Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.
