Marathi film 'Court' out of Oscar nominations race

Los Angeles: Chaitanya Tamhane's Marathi film 'Court' is out of the best foreign film Oscar race after it failed to qualify in the Academy's latest shortlist. Nine films have advanced in the race for the Oscar for foreign-language film out of 80 movies and they have moved on to the next phase of voting for the 88th Academy Awards.

Debutante Tamhane's film beat Rajkumar Hirani's 'PK', Neeraj Ghyaywan's Cannes winner 'Masaan', Omung Kumar's 'Mary Kom', Vishal Bharadwaj's 'Haider', M Manikandan's 'Kaaka Muttai' and SS Rajamouli's 'Baahubali' in the Oscar race.

The films that have made it to the Oscar shortlist in the best foreign film category include Belgium's 'The Brand New Testament', Colombia's 'Embrace of the Serpent', Denmark's 'A War', Finland's 'The Fencer', France's 'Mustang', Germany's 'Labyrinth of Lies', Hungarian project 'Son of Saul', Ireland's 'Viva', and Jordan's 'Theeb'.

Seven of the nine films are from Europe. There is one from the Mideast and one from South America. Asia and Africa were shut out, as were Australia (which had submitted 'Arrows of the Thunder Dragon') and North America (including Canada's 'Felix and Meira' and Mexico's '600 Miles').

There were some high-profile films that didn't make the cut. The no-shows include Austria's 'Goodnight Mommy', Brazil's 'The Second Mother', Iranian film 'Muhammad: The Messenger of God', Palestine's 'The Wanted 18', Poland's '11Minutes' and Portugal's 'Arabian Nights? Volume 2, The Desolate One'.

The nominations of the 88th Oscars will announced on January 14 and the ceremony is to be held on February 28 atthe Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.