French, Austrians up for foreign Oscar, Asians out

LOS ANGELES (AFP) ― French blockbuster “Les Intouchables” and Austrian Michael Haneke’s Palme d’Or winner “Love” are frontrunners on a shortlist of nine published Friday for the best foreign language film Oscar.

The list of films still in the running ― whittled down from 71 movies in a long-list published in October ― also included films from Canada, Chile, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Romania and Switzerland.

Hong Kong movie master Johnnie To and China’s Chen Kaige ― whose “Farewell my Concubine” won the top Cannes film festival prize in 1993 ― did not make the shortlist cut of foreign movies vying for an Academy Award.

The five finalists will be announced on January 10, along with nominations in all other categories for the 85th Academy Awards, the climax of Hollywood’s annual prize-giving season, to be held on Feb. 24.

“Les Intouchables” (“The Intouchables”) by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano has become the film with the second biggest take at the French box office and the biggest French film ever overseas.

It tells the moving and poignant story of a wealthy quadriplegic Frenchman who hires a young black man from an urban ghetto to look after him following a horrific road crash.

Austrian filmmaker Haneke’s tale of love and aging won the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize in May, after the director took it home for the first time with 2009’s “The White Ribbon.”

“Love” tells the wrenching tale of a man and his dying wife, chronicling the intimate details of Anne’s physical and mental decline, as Georges fulfills a pledge to care for her at home until the end.

The shortlist will be winnowed down to the five nominees by Academy committees who will meet in New York and Los Angeles over the weekend of Jan. 4-6, watching three films each day and then casting their ballots.

Last year’s foreign language Oscar went to Iran’s “A Separation,” which presents a social expose of the Islamic republic behind the veneer of a taut family drama, while exploring themes of love, lies and honor.

Iranian authorities withdrew their candidate film in September due to anger at a U.S.-made anti-Islam online film, which triggered protests across the Muslim world.