Azerbaijan has submitted films for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film since 2007. The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film 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] As of 2017 [update] , seven Azerbaijani films have been submitted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but none has yet received an Oscar nomination. [3] [4] [5]
Azerbaijan, officially the Republic of Azerbaijan, is a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west and Iran to the south. The exclave of Nakhchivan is bounded by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, and has an 11 km (6.8 mi) long border with Turkey in the northwest.
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.
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. [2] 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. [1] Below is a list of the films that have been submitted by Azerbaijan for review by the Academy for the award by year and the respective Academy Awards ceremony.
The secret ballot, also known as Australian ballot, is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous, forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation, blackmailing, and potential vote buying. The system is one means of achieving the goal of political privacy.
Year (Ceremony) | Film title used in nomination | Original title | Primary Language(s) | Director | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2007 (80th) | Caucasia | Qafqaz | Russian | Farid Gumbatov | Not Nominated |
2008 (81st) | Fortress | Qala | Azerbaijani | Shamil Najafzadeh | Not Nominated |
2010 (83rd) | The Precinct [6] | Sahə | Azerbaijani, Russian | Ilgar Safat | Not Nominated |
2012 (85th) | Buta [7] | Buta | Azerbaijani | Ilgar Najaf | Not Nominated |
2013 (86th) | Steppe Man [8] | Çölçü | Azerbaijani | Shamil Aliyev | Not Nominated |
2014 (87th) | Nabat [9] | Nabat | Azerbaijani | Elchin Musaoglu | Not Nominated |
2017 (90th) | Pomegranate Orchard [10] | Nar bağı | Azerbaijani | Ilgar Najaf | Not Nominated |
Azerbaijan was first invited by AMPAS to submit a film in the Best Foreign Language Film category in the summer of 2006, [11] and they submitted for the first time in fall of 2007.
Azerbaijan's first Oscar submission was Caucasia by Farid Gumbatov - the story of an old woman leaving her war-torn Caucasian homeland for Russia, aboard a train. The following year, Azerbaijan sent Fortress, a drama about a film crew making a movie in an isolated mountain town famous for its ancient fortress, and what happens when the town is threatened by a modern-day foreign invasion. Neither film made much of an impact on the international film festival circuit, and neither film managed to get an Oscar nomination.