The Pakistani Academy Selection Committee has invited local filmmakers to submit their entries for Oscar consideration under the ‘Foreign Language Film Award’ category for the upcoming 91st Academy Awards. They have been asked to send their films for consideration by August 20, 2018 and this will be the sixth consecutive submission from Pakistan.
Once the entries are received, the committee will choose one of them as Pakistan’s official submission for the ‘Foreign Language Film Award’ and will announce it by September 2018.
The committee is chaired by two-time Academy Award-winning filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy and comprises novelists Kamila Shamshie and HM Naqvi, actor-director Saira Kazmi, singer-songwriter and philanthropist Hadiqa Kiani, singer and writer Ali Sethi, singer-songwriter Zoe Viccaji, journalist, author and critic Nadeem Farooq Paracha, Hairstylist and entrepreneur Nabila Maqsood, actor and RJ Khalid Malik, and actor-host Faisal Qureshi.
There is an eligibility criterion for films to qualify for consideration. It includes aspects surrounding the film’s initial release, advertisement, dialogues, language and creative control.
A foreign language film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States of America with a predominantly non-English dialogue track. The past five submissions for the category include critically acclaimed films like Meenu Gaur and Farjad Nabi’s Zinda Bhaag (2013), Afia Nathaniel’s Dukhtar (2014), Jami’s Moor (2015), Anjum Shahzad’s Mah e Mir (2016) and Farhan Alam’s Saawan (2017).
