Bangladeshi submissions called for 94th Academy Awards

The Oscar Bangladesh Committee has asked Bangladeshi filmmakers to submit their feature film entries to compete in the Best International Feature Film category of the 94th Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars.

Feature films released since January 1 this year which ran for seven consecutive days at any local theatre will be eligible to take part in the selection process, said a press release issued by the Bangladesh Federation of Film Societies.

The entries will have to be subtitled in English. Thereafter, the selected film will be submitted to the Academy as Bangladesh’s official entry, said the release signed by Abdullah Al Maruf, coordinator of the Oscar Bangladesh Committee for the 94th edition .

Like previous years, Bangladesh Federation of Film Societies has formed a nine-member committee headed by film personality Habibur Rahman Khan to scrutinize the submissions.

Application forms can be collected from the office of Ashirbad Chalachchitra housed in Eastern Commercial Complex in the capital’s Kakrail. The deadline for the submission of application forms and all required documents is October 14.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film every year since the award was created in 1956.

The Best International Feature Film Award is presented annually by the Academy to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States that contains 50 per cent or more of non-English dialogue.

The 94th Academy Awards will take place on March 27, 2022 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. This is the first time since 2018 that the ceremony will take place in March, having moved to avoid conflicting with the Winter Olympics. Originally scheduled to take place on February 27, 2022, the ceremony was postponed to March 2022 because of the impact of the pandemic on cinema.

The deadline for submissions to the Academy is November 1, 2021. A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to be announced on December 21, with the final five nominees announced on February 8, 2022.

The 2021 awards saw 93 submissions, with nominations for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s ‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’, Hong Kong’s ‘Better Days’, Romania’s ‘Collective’, Tunisia’s ‘The Man Who Sold His Skin’ and eventual winner ‘Another Round’ from Denmark.

‘Nomadland,’ a recession-era tale about a community of van dwellers in the American West, won the Oscar for Best Picture at the 93rd Academy Awards.