Pakistan’s Oscars committee calls for submissions

Qualifying film will contend for Best Foreign Language Film category

KARACHI: The Pakistani Academy Selection Committee is inviting film-makers from across the country to submit their work, for consideration in the Best Foreign Language Film Award category at the 89th Academy Awards in February 2017. According to a press release, all aspiring candidates must present their films by 5pm on August 22 to be accepted.

With this, the committee – chaired by two-time Academy Award winner Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy – will mark the fourth consecutive submission from Pakistan, after 2013’s Zinda Bhaag, 2014’s Dukhtar and 2015’s Moor. The selection jury also includes Iram Parveen Bilal, Zeba Bakhtiar, Adnan Siddiqui, Hasan Zaidi, Sheema Kermani, Sarmad Khoosat, Jamshed Mahmood Raza, Adnan Sarwar and Jamil Dehlavi.

As per the Academy, a foreign language film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States, with a predominantly non-English dialogue track. In order to be eligible, the film must first be released within its home country before October 1 and be publicly exhibited for at least seven consecutive days in a commercial theater for the profit of the producer and exhibitor.

Along with other technical specifics, the Academy required that all submitting countries certify that creative control of the motion picture was largely in the hands of its citizens or residents of that country.

The committee will announce its nomination on September 16.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 7^th, 2016.

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