Two administrators discussed the Academy’s rejection of Asif Kapadia’s The Warrior as the United Kingdom’s foreign-language submission. They objected to a rule that treated language as the main evidence of a film’s national origin.
Recovered posts
Posted 4 December 2002. Names, locations, signatures, email addresses, and personal links have been removed.
The first post:
As reported, Asif Kapadia’s “The Warrior” has been rejected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as an official selection from the UK. Even though the financing is coming from the Director’s place of birth, and the crew was European, the film doesn’t meet the linguistic specifications.
This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. “The Touch” has also been denied, the reason being that for the most part the dialog is in English, not Mandarin, which is a major language of the local where movie was filmed (Hong Kong).
All of this looks really nice on paper, but I really must question the motivation behind such a rigid selection process. The financing, location, cast and crew origin and other considerations would seem to be much more relevant in narrowing down possible matches, than the linguistic decisions of the filmmakers.
The second administrator quoted the Academy rule and asked why a British filmmaker making a film about ancient India should use English:
Since the defense here appears to be about the film not being “predominantly in a language of the country of origin”, then I have to ask where the exception comes into play. I mean, a UK filmmaker making a film about ancient India and he’s supposed to make it in English just because the Academy says so?
All this focus on English makes me wonder how westernized these awards are. “Accurate English subtitles”??? What in the hell is this?!
The argument is about classification. The Academy needed a manageable national category and used language as a proxy. The thread objected that the proxy overruled the actual production history and artistic choices of the film.