The American Film Academy has published the shortlist of ten award categories, including the best international film and documentary category, from which the Oscar nominees will be selected in January, The Hollywood Reporter reported.
According to the announcement, films such as Top Gun: Maverick, Black Panther 2, and Avatar: The Way of Water have moved closer to the Oscars, and the Oscar chances of Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, and Rihanna have also strengthened.
The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced on Wednesday the shortlist of 10 Oscar categories – best international film, documentary, make-up and hair, soundtrack, original film score, sound, visual effects, feature film, short documentary and short animated film – which will be nominees, and the winners of the 95th Academy Awards will also be announced in March.
In the international film category, Hungary entered the award with the film Blokád, but the production was not included in the selection. Among the 15 films selected from the 92 films nominated this year, with potential for Oscar nominations, are Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s Bardo, the Danish Saint Spider, the German The Situation in the West is Unchanged, the French Saint-Omer, the Austrian Fűző, the Polish EO, the Cambodian Return to Seoul, South Korea’s The Mysterious Woman, Ireland’s The Quiet Girl, Morocco’s Le bleu du caftan, Sweden’s Boy from Heaven, Belgium’s Close and Argentina, 1985. For the first time, a Pakistani production, Joyland, made it to the shortlist in this category, and for the first time in twenty years, a film from India, Pan Nalin’s drama Last Film Show, can also be nominated.
The documentary shortlist includes, among others, Laura Poitras’ Venice award-winning All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Brett Morgen’s David Bowie film Moonage Daydream, Daniel Roher’s production about the Russian opposition politician Navalny, and the award-winning Fire of Love a documentary about volcanologists was also uploaded.
Several of the year’s super productions, including Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Road to Water, or Black Panther 2, are also represented on the shortlists of the technical categories. The best original film song is also in the field Lady Gaga’s Hold My Hand from Top Gun, The Weeknd’s Nothing Is Lost from Avatar and Rihanna’s Lift Me Up from Black Panther 2.
The shortlists of the categories are mostly determined by the members of the film industry of the given category, although the selection differs from industry to industry: in some cases, committees decide, and in other cases, members who undertake to watch the films can vote.
The Oscar nominations in all award categories will be announced on January 24, and the 95th Academy Awards will be held on March 12.
