Afghan Film 'Utopia' Disqualified from Foreign Language Oscar Race
Controversially, Utopia has been disqualified from this season's Oscar battle, seemingly for not being foreign enough.
The film, which debuted in July, is a Babel-like drama that involves three intersecting stories, screened a couple of weeks ago at the Asian World Film Festival in L.A. where Malalai Zikria won the best actress award.
The film does not however meet the requirements of rule 13, section A of the 'Special Rules for the Foreign Language Film Award", stating (paraphrased) that a foreign film is a predominantly on-English feature. Utopia has too much English in it.
So, despite the film being a foreign (outside of US and other western countries) film, and featuring its own Dari language among it, Utopia has been disqualified. It seems a tragedy that potentially great films are flicked off the table for such insubstantial reasons.
Source: Hollywoodreporter
