Argentina Shortlists Three Films for Oscar Submission

Even though a number of countries have already submitted their candidates for the Academy Awards' Foreign Film category, Argentina has yet to make a decision on which film to support.

The South American country is a six-time nominee and recipient of two Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The country won in 1985 for the film "The Official Story." In 2010, the country surprised by beating out front-runner "The White Ribbon" with Juan Jose Campanella's "The Secret in their Eyes" starring Ricardo Darin.

This year, Argentina has three films that have been widely acclaimed in the country. The first is "Thesis on a Homocide" starring Darin and Aleberto Ammann. The film premiered in theaters in Argentina this past January but has not been widely seen outside of the country. As a result, the movie could suffer from a lack of festival and international exposure.

"Wakolda" is the second choice and is the favorite to get nominated. The film is directed by Lucia Puenzo and stars Natalia Oreiro and Diego Peretti. The movie competed at the Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard sidebar and that alone could give it an advantage over the rest of the films. However, the movie scored mixed reviews with Variety's Peter Debruge, who stated, "Lucia Puenzo's plodding potboiler examines Argentina's history of harboring Nazis after WWII."

The last option is "La Reconstruction with Peretti." The movie premiered in the Venice Film Festival's Venice Days sidebar as well as the Raindance Film Festival. It was also seen in Valladolid and is slated to continue its international festival trail.

While these three films are considered the front-runners for the Oscar bid, one film could surprise. Campanella's "Fooseball" is an animated film that is not as highly regarded as the others and is also seen as a dark horse to be chosen. However, Argentina may want to try and make history by becoming the second animated nominee in the category. The Academy usually chooses live action films that deal with societal or historical topics. Only once did they choose an animated film and that was Isreal's "Waltz with Bashir" in 2009.

The Academy Award's foreign film submission deadline is October 1, with the nominations slated to be announced on January 16.