List of submissions to the 75th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film

2002 Best Foreign Language Film submissions
Highlights
Oscar winner	Nowhere in Africa
Total submissions	54
First-time submissions	3

This is a list of submissions to the 75th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. 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 Foreign Language Film every year since the award was created in 1956. The award is handed out annually by the Academy to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States that contains primarily non-English dialogue. The Foreign Language Film Award Committee oversees the process and reviews all the submitted films.

For the 75th Academy Awards fifty-four films were submitted. Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Chad submitted films for the first time. The previous year's winner Bosnia & Herzegovina did not submit a film. The Brazilian submission, City of God was considered one of the favorites, but it was famously snubbed. When the film was released the following year in the US, it garnered nominations in four main categories including Best Screenplay and Best Director.

Germany won the award for the second time, marking the first win since its reunification, with Nowhere in Africa by Caroline Link.

Submissions

Submitting country	Film title used in nomination	Original title	Language(s)	Director(s)	Result
Afghanistan	FireDancer		Pashto, English	Jawed Wassel	Not nominated
Algeria	Rachida		French, Arabic	Yamina Bachir-Chouikh	Not nominated
Argentina	Kamchatka		Spanish	Marcelo Piñeyro	Not nominated
Austria	Gebürtig		German	Robert Schindel and Lukas Stepanik	Not nominated
Bangladesh	The Clay Bird	মাটির ময়না	Bengali	Tareque Masud	Not nominated
Belgium	The Son	Le Fils	French	Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne	Not nominated
Brazil	City of God	Cidade de Deus	Brazilian Portuguese	Fernando Meirelles	Not nominated
Bulgaria	Warming Up Yesterday's Lunch	Подгряване на вчерашния обед	Bulgarian	Kostadin Bonev	Not nominated
Canada	Un crabe dans la tête	Un crabe dans la tête	French	André Turpin	Not nominated
Chad	Abouna		Chadian Arabic, French	Mahamat Saleh Haroun	Not nominated
Chile	Ogú y Mampato en Rapa Nui	Ogú y Mampato en Rapa Nui	Spanish	Alejandro Rojas	Not nominated
China	Hero	英雄	Mandarin	Zhang Yimou	Nominated
Colombia	The Invisible Children	Los niños invisibles	Spanish	Lisandro Duque Naranjo	Not nominated
Croatia	Fine Dead Girls	Fine mrtve djevojke	Croatian	Dalibor Matanić	Not nominated
Cuba	Nothing More	Nada	Spanish	Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti	Not nominated
Czech Republic	The Wild Bees	Divoké vcely	Czech	Bohdan Sláma	Not nominated
Denmark	Open Hearts	Elsker dig for evigt	Danish	Susanne Bier	Not nominated
Egypt	A Girl's Secret	أسرار البنات	Arabic	Magdy Ahmed Aly	Not nominated
Finland	The Man Without a Past	Mies vailla menneisyyttä	Finnish	Aki Kaurismäki	Nominated
France	8 Femmes		French	François Ozon	Not nominated
Germany	Nowhere in Africa	Nirgendwo in Afrika	German, English, Swahili	Caroline Link	Won Academy Award
Greece	The Only Journey of His Life	Το μόνον της ζωής του ταξείδιον	Greek	Lakis Papastathis	Not nominated
Hong Kong	The Touch	天脈傳奇	English, Mandarin	Peter Pau	Disqualified
Hungary	Hukkle		Hungarian, Czech	György Pálfi	Not nominated
Iceland	The Sea	Hafið	Icelandic, Norwegian, English	Baltasar Kormákur	Not nominated
India	Devdas	देवदास	Hindi	Sanjay Leela Bhansail	Not nominated
Indonesia	Ca-bau-kan		Indonesian	Nia diNata	Not nominated
Iran	I'm Taraneh, 15	من ترانه ۱۵ سال دارم	Persian	Rasul Sadrameli	Not nominated
Israel	Broken Wings	כנפיים שבורות	Hebrew	Nir Bergman	Not nominated
Italy	Pinocchio		Italian	Roberto Benigni	Not nominated
Japan	Out		Japanese	Hideyuki Hirayama	Not nominated
South Korea	Oasis	오아시스	Korean	Lee Chang-dong	Not nominated
Lebanon	When Maryam Spoke Out	لمّا حكيت مريم	Arabic	Assad Fouladkar	Not nominated
Luxembourg	Dead Man's Hand	Petites misères	French	Laurent Brandenburger & Philippe Boon	Not nominated
Mexico	The Crime of Padre Amaro	El crimen del Padre Amaro	Spanish	Carlos Carrera	Nominated
Netherlands	Zus & Zo		Dutch	Paula van der Oest	Nominated
Norway	Hold My Heart	Tyven, tyven	Norwegian	Trygve Allister Diesen	Not nominated
Philippines	Small Voices	Mga Munting tinig	Tagalog, English	Gil M. Portes	Not nominated
Poland	Edi		Polish	Piotr Trzaskalski	Not nominated
Portugal	O Delfim		Portuguese	Fernando Lopes	Not nominated
Romania	Philanthropy	Filantropica	Romanian	Nae Caranfil	Not nominated
Russia	House of Fools	Дом дураков	Russian, Chechen	Andrei Konchalovsky	Not nominated
Yugoslavia	Labyrinth	Лавиринт	Serbian	Miroslav Lekic	Not nominated
Slovakia	Cruel Joys	Kruté radosti	Slovak, Czech	Juraj Nvota	Not nominated
Slovenia	Headnoise	Zvenenje v glavi	Slovene	Andrej Košak	Not nominated
Spain	Mondays in the Sun	Los lunes al sol	Spanish	Fernando Leon de Aranoa	Not nominated
Sweden	Lilja 4-ever		Swedish, Russian, English, Polish	Lukas Moodysson	Not nominated
Switzerland	Aime ton père		French	Jacob Berger	Not nominated
Taiwan	The Best of Times	美麗時光	Taiwanese Hokkien, Mandarin, Hakka	Chang Tso-chi	Not nominated
Thailand	Monrak Transistor	มนต์รักทรานซิสเตอร์	Thai	Pen-ek Ratanaruang	Not nominated
Tunisia	The Magic Box	La Boîte magique	French, Arabic	Ridha Behi	Not nominated
Turkey	9	Dokuz	Turkish	Ümit Ünal	Not nominated
United Kingdom	Eldra		Welsh	Tim Lyn	Not nominated
Uruguay	Corazon de Fuego	El último tren	Spanish	Diego Arsuaga	Not nominated
Venezuela	The Archangel's Feather	La pluma del arcángel		Luis Manzo	Not nominated

Notes

• Afghanistan, which had been liberated from Taliban rule only a year before, submitted their first-ever film for consideration. The movie, about Afghan-Americans, was filmed mostly in English, but partially in Dari. When the film was shown in Afghanistan, it was entirely dubbed into Dari and it was this version that was sent to the Oscars. At first, the Academy claimed that the submission did not quite conform to the rules, however, the film, whose director had been murdered before post-production was finished, was accepted.
• Hong Kong elected to send an action film, The Touch, that was disqualified because the dialogue was completely in English, and not in a foreign language
• Palestine tried to submit Divine Intervention, forcing the Academy to make a decision about whether it would accept Palestine as a country. AMPAS determined that Palestine was not a country, and therefore could not submit a film. They also said that there had been no "national selection committee" that chose Divine Intervention, as required by the rules. It was also unclear how the film would be released in its home country according to the rules, since Palestine had no internationally recognized boundaries. This decision was much criticized, especially since countries like Taiwan, Puerto Rico and Hong Kong, none of which recognized as sovereign nations by the United Nations, had been submitting movies for years. AMPAS reversed its decision the following year, and allowed Divine Intervention to compete.
• The United Kingdom sent The Warrior, a British-produced film set in India, spoken entirely in Hindi, and filmed by Asif Kapadia, a British director of Indian descent. However, the Academy asked to submit another film since AMPAS rules stated that all films had to be in a language indigenous to the submitting country. The Warrior was not acceptable, AMPAS argued, because Hindi was not a language indigenous to the United Kingdom, and the film was not about, nor set among British people. Had the film been set among the Hindi-speaking community in the UK, it would have been approved. BAFTA appealed to the Academy to reconsider, but to no avail. The film won Best British Film at the BAFTA awards the following year. Britain ended up choosing Eldra, a film in Welsh. In 2006, AMPAS changed the rules to allow countries to choose films which were not in the language of the submitting country. Canada was the first to take advantage of this new rule by submitting Water, which was also in Hindi.