The Netherlands has submitted films for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film since 1959. 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] The award was created for the 1956 Academy Awards, succeeding the non-competitive Honorary Academy Awards which were presented between 1947 and 1955 to the best foreign language films released in the United States. [2]
The Netherlands is a country located mainly in Northwestern Europe. The European portion of the Netherlands consists of twelve provinces that border Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, with maritime borders in the North Sea with Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom. Together with three island territories in the Caribbean Sea—Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba—it forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The official language is Dutch, but a secondary official language in the province of Friesland is West Frisian.
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.
As of 2018 [update] , seven Dutch films have been nominated for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, three of which have won the award: The Assault in 1987, Antonia's Line in 1996 and Character in 1998. [3] Two Dutch submissions were disqualified: The Vanishing in 1989 because more than half of the film was spoken in French and Bluebird in 2006 because it had aired on television. [4]
Antonia's Line is a 1995 Dutch feminist film written and directed by Marleen Gorris. The film, described as a "feminist fairy tale", tells the story of the independent Antonia who, after returning to the anonymous Dutch village of her birth, establishes and nurtures a close-knit matriarchal community. The film covers a breadth of topics, with themes ranging from death and religion to sex, intimacy, lesbianism, friendship and love.
The Vanishing is a 1988 thriller film directed by George Sluizer, adapted from the novella The Golden Egg (1984) by Tim Krabbé. It stars Gene Bervoets as a man who searches obsessively for his girlfriend following her disappearance at a rest area.
French is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the spoken Latin in Gaul, and more specifically in Northern Gaul. Its closest relatives are the other langues d'oïl—languages historically spoken in northern France and in southern Belgium, which French (Francien) has largely supplanted. French was also influenced by native Celtic languages of Northern Roman Gaul like Gallia Belgica and by the (Germanic) Frankish language of the post-Roman Frankish invaders. Today, owing to France's past overseas expansion, there are numerous French-based creole languages, most notably Haitian Creole. A French-speaking person or nation may be referred to as Francophone in both English and French.
Fons Rademakers represented the Netherlands in the competition five times, achieving two Oscar nominations, including one win.
Alphonse Marie "Fons" Rademakers was a Dutch actor, film director, film producer and screenwriter.
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. [5] 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] Before the award was created, the Board of Governors of the Academy voted on a film every year that was considered the best foreign language film released in the United States, and there were no submissions. [2] Below is a list of the films that have been submitted by the Netherlands for review by the Academy for the award since its first entry in 1959.
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.
Cinema of the Netherlands refers to the film industry based in the Netherlands. Because the Dutch film industry is relatively small, and there is little or no international market for Dutch films, almost all films rely on state funding. This funding can be achieved through several sources, for instance through the Netherlands Film Fund or the public broadcast networks. In recent years the Dutch Government has established several tax shelters for private investments in Dutch films.