Oscar alters foreign-language song rules

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - A couple of new rules governing the Academy Awards could result in the foreign-language film category becoming more inclusive and the original song category becoming more competitive.

In the past two years, 2006's "Dreamgirls" and 2007's "Enchanted," dominated the song race with three nominations each -- although neither film took home the statuette. A new rule stipulates that only two tunes per movie may be nominated for original song.

In the foreign-language race this year, such critically applauded features as Romania's "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" and France's "Persepolis" failed to score a nomination. In future, an executive committee will be able to rectify any glaring omissions by adding three films to a shortlist of six. As it has done in the past two years, another committee will then winnow the enlarged shortlist to five nominees.

"While I was very proud of our five nominees, I was just more concerned about what we excluded than what we said Mark Johnson, chairman of the Academy's foreign-language committee.

Nominations for next year's Oscars will be announced January 22, and the awards will be presented on February 22.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter