List of Singaporean submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

Singapore has submitted films for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film on a fairly regular basis since 2005. Singapore also submitted a single film while a British colony in 1959. 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]

As of 2016, a total of ten films have been submitted for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but none has yet received an Oscar nomination.

Submissions

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 Singapore for review by the Academy for the award by year and the respective Academy Awards ceremony.

Year
(Ceremony) 		Film title used
in nomination 		Language(s) Director Result
1959
(32nd)		 The Kingdom and the Beauty Mandarin Chinese Han-hsiang, LiLi Han-hsiang Not Nominated
2005
(78th)		 Be With Me [3] English, Cantonese,
Mandarin and Hokkien [4]		 Khoo, EricEric Khoo Disqualified
2007
(80th)		 881 Mandarin, Hokkien
and English		 Tan, RoystonRoyston Tan Not Nominated
2008
(81st)		 My Magic Tamil Khoo, EricEric Khoo Not Nominated
2011
(84th)		 Tatsumi[5] Japanese Khoo, EricEric Khoo Not Nominated
2012
(85th)		 Already Famous[6] Chinese Chong, MichelleMichelle Chong Not Nominated
2013
(86th)		 Ilo Ilo[7] Chinese Chen, AnthonyAnthony Chen Not Nominated
2014
(87th)		 My Beloved Dearest[8] Sayang Disayang[9][10][11] Malay, Bahasa Indonesia Olek, SanifSanif Olek Not Nominated
2015
(88th)		 7 Letters[12] Malay, Hokkien, Mandarin,
Malayalam, English		 Junfeng Boo, Eric Khoo, Jack Neo, K Rajagopal,
Pin Pin Tan, Royston Tan, Kelvin Tong		 Not Nominated
2016
(89th)		 Apprentice[13] Malay, English Boo Junfeng
TBD

Three of the submissions - Be With Me, My Magic, and Tatsumi were directed by Eric Khoo. Both films were among the first Singaporean films featured at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival. Be With Me features four interconnected stories, with virtually no spoken dialogue. The majority of the story is told in English subtitles reflecting the thoughts of the deaf and blind lead actress, Theresa Chan. It was accepted by AMPAS as the official entry from Singapore but subsequently disqualified for being more than 50% in English and not in a Foreign Language.[14] My Magic tells the story of the relationship between an alcoholic Indo-Singaporean magician and his young son.

Two other submissions were large-scale musicals. In 1959, Colonial Singapore sent musical-drama The Kingdom and the Beauty, set in Imperial China. Directed by a Hong Kong based-Mainland Chinese director and produced by the famed Hong Kong Shaw Brothers film studio, there was minimal Singaporean input in the film-making. Nearly fifty years later, independent Singapore sent 881, a candy-colored musical-comedy-drama about a pair of Singaporean sisters who aspire to become champions at traditional Singaporean getai. This "uniquely Singaporean" film became the highest grossing Singaporean film of 2007 [15] and was released commercially in Japan but it won few awards overseas.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Rule Thirteen: Special Rules for the Foreign Language Film Award". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 2013-08-26.
  2. ↑ "History of the Academy Awards - Page 2". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 2008-06-22. Retrieved 2008-08-07.
  3. ↑ Disqualified after its official Oscar screening for containing more than 50% English dialogue
  4. ↑ Film is mostly dialogue-less
  5. ↑ "63 Countries Vie for 2011 Foreign Language Film Oscar". oscars.org. Retrieved 2011-10-14.
  6. ↑ "71 Countries Vie for 2012 Foreign Language Film Oscar®". 8 October 2012. Retrieved 8 October 2012.
  7. ↑ "Is Oscars the next stop for "Ilo Ilo"?". Channel News Asia. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  8. ↑ "S'pore Malay film in Oscar bid". Asia One. Retrieved 27 September 2014.
  9. ↑ http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscars-singapore-selects-sayang-disayang-736277
  10. ↑ http://variety.com/2014/film/news/singapore-oscar-contender-sayang-disayang-1201315047/
  11. ↑ http://raymonddeasislo.blogspot.sg/2014/10/oscars-2015-sayang-disayang.html
  12. ↑ Chan, Boon (8 October 2015). "7 Letters is Singapore's entry to the Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category". Straits Times. Retrieved 8 October 2015.
  13. ↑ Blair, Gavin J. (15 September 2016). "Oscars: Singapore Selects 'Apprentice' for Foreign-Language Category". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  14. ↑ Koehler, Robert (2005-12-21). "Foreign Oscar pix lost in translation". Variety.
  15. ↑ Source: Singapore Film Commission

External links

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