Los Angeles: And the Oscar goes to….well, this year it does not seem all that simple. More than 300 films are eligible for the coveted Best Picture prize at next year's Oscars, Academy Awards organisers said on Friday.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said in a statement 307 feature films were qualified for US cinema's top honor, which will be handed out at the Oscars in Hollywood on February 25.
To be eligible for consideration at the 79th Academy Awards, the films must open in a commercial motion picture theatre in Los Angeles County by midnight on December 31 and run for a minimum of seven consecutive days.
Under Academy rules, eligible films must run for longer than 40 minutes and have been screened in either 35mm or 70 mm film or an approved digital format.
The nominations for the Oscars will be announced on January 23 at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theatre, with the awards following one month later.
This year's competition for the Oscars best picture prize is shaping up as one of the closest in years, with several critically acclaimed movies making strong claims for the award.
Among the early front-runners are Martin Scorsese's crime thriller The Departed; Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's drama Babel; Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima; Stephen Frears' The Queen and musical Dreamgirls.
Comments
0 comment