Oscars: 10 great Asian films ignored for the Academy Awards’ best foreign language statuette
- True, three of the last 10 winners of the award were from the continent – Departures from Japan, and Iran’s A Separation and The Salesman
- But these 10 Asian films didn’t even earn consideration for the Oscar
This weekend, Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma will make Oscars history if it becomes the first foreign-language film to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Should it do so, the Oscar for best foreign-language film, for which Roma is also nominated, could go to one of the other nominees, but those rooting for Hirokazu Koreeda’s Palme d’Or winner Shoplifters should beware: Asia’s history at the Oscars is far from stellar.
That fact may not be evidence at first glance. Three of the last 10 winners of the award were from Asia – Japanese funeral drama Departures, which won in 2009, and two Iranian films Asghar Farhadi’s A Separation (2012) and The Salesman (2017). But few would argue that these films represent the best of Asian cinema from the past decade.
Unlike other Oscar nominees, which are selected from among all the films released in the United States during the previous calendar year, countries are invited to submit one film each to compete for the best foreign-language film Oscar – and the award going to the country, rather than to filmmakers.
Any number of external forces can influence which films are put forward, and rarely is there a consensus that the film a country selects is the best of its cinematic output for the year.
China, for example, invariably submits politically safe fare from established filmmakers such as Chen Kaige or Zhang Yimou, while more provocative films, such as those of Jia Zhangke, are passed over despite garnering festival recognition. Similarly, India has faced accusations of nepotism and cronyism over its recent selections.
These anodyne submissions go some way to explaining why Asian films so rarely win. However, it is equally true that contemporary Asian stories fail do not connect with the Academy in the same way as stories from Mexico, France or Italy – which has won the Oscar a record 14 times – do.