BY: Amanda Jane Stern

Every year certain films are absent from Academy Award nominations. The Academy is no stranger to controversy.  In 2015, the twitter hashtag #OscarsSoWhite trended because of the lack of diversity among nominees. This year, it seems there is more controversy.  It revolves around four praise-worthy foreign movies that are nominated. It also indicates the Academy is still operating under old practices.

Joy

This Austrian film is about a Nigerian woman caught up in the world of sex trafficking to support her family in Nigeria and her daughter in Vienna. Joy premiered at the Venice International Film Festival and won best film at the London Film Festival. Joy was submitted as Austria’s best foreign film but was deemed ineligible by the Academy. Why? The film, although an Austrian production, is mainly in English. According to Academy rules, a foreign film cannot be primarily in English. However, the Academy fails to recognize that Joy is about a Nigerian woman and because of colonization, English is the official language of Nigeria.

Lionheart

Lionheart centers on a young Nigerian woman who wants to prove her worth and take over the company when her dad can no longer work. It is the first film Nigeria has submitted for the best foreign film at the Oscars. But, like Joy, most of the film is in English and was deemed ineligible.  Just ten minutes is in Igbo. By shutting it out, the Academy disregards the political ramifications of colonization. It also sends a message that to count as a foreign film, it must conform to guidelines that may ignore the reality of a country.

The Farewell

The Farewell centers on a Chinese-American woman who travels to China, under the guise of a family wedding, to say goodbye to her dying grandmother. The Farewell is not a foreign film, but it is primarily in Mandarin. The Academy considers this American-made project as foreign. The way the organization ignores English colonization in both Lionheart and Joy, the Academy also fails to recognize what makes America. As a nation of immigrants, with no official language, should the Academy say an American-made film about the immigrant experience is not American?

Portrait of a Lady on Fire

The eighteenth-century French love story about two women, a painter and her subject, has garnered amazing press and won the Queer Palm at the Cannes Film Festival. Unlike other movies on this list, it hasn’t been shut out by the Oscars because of language, but because each country is only allowed one entry. France submitted Les Misérables. While the Academy has issues with the other films on this list because of culture, this omission highlights something else: that a nation has just one submission. Could the Academy determine the nomination from multiples submitted for consideration?