Academy Awards | Go Mustang Go

Foreign Language Film nominations for 2015 are being determined in two phases.

The Phase I committee, consisting of several hundred Los Angeles-based Academy members, screened the original submissions in the category between mid-October and December 14.  The group’s top six choices, augmented by three additional selections voted by the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee, constitute the shortlist.

The shortlist will be winnowed down to the category’s five nominees by specially invited committees in New York, Los Angeles and London.  They will spend Friday, January 8, through Sunday, January 10, viewing three films each day and then casting their ballots.

The 88th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live on Thursday, January 14, 2016, at 5:30 a.m. PT at the Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

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"Mustang" made it "Sivas" the nominated entry for Turkey did not.

Mavi Boncuk |

Nine features will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 88th Academy Awards®.  Eighty films had originally been considered in the category.

The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

     Belgium, "The Brand New Testament," Jaco Van Dormael, director;

     Colombia, "Embrace of the Serpent," Ciro Guerra, director;

     Denmark, "A War," Tobias Lindholm, director;

     Finland, "The Fencer," Klaus Härö, director;

     France, "Mustang,"[1] Deniz Gamze Ergüven, director;

     Germany, "Labyrinth of Lies," Giulio Ricciarelli, director;

     Hungary, "Son of Saul," László Nemes, director;

     Ireland, "Viva," Paddy Breathnach, director;

     Jordan, "Theeb," Naji Abu Nowar, director.

[1] Mustang
Directed by Deniz Gamze Ergüven 
(PG)

Five young sisters living in a coastal Turkish village on the Black Sea are placed under the tyrannical regime of traditional morality by their guardians, in the poignant, award-winning first feature by Turkish director Deniz Gamze Ergüven.

The feature debut of Turkish filmmaker Deniz Gamze Ergüven is a sensitive and powerful portrait of sisterhood and burgeoning sexuality. In a remote Turkish coastal village on the Black Sea, five young sisters live under the guardianship of their grandmother and uncle after the deaths of their parents. When a neighbour witnesses the girls innocently playing on the beach, she reports this "scandalous" behaviour to their guardians, who institute a tyrannical regime of both physical and emotional imprisonment. All "instruments of corruption" and pop-culture artifacts are removed from the house, girly outfits are replaced with formless brown dresses, and, following a brief escape to an all-female soccer match, bars are installed on the windows and gates erected at the home's entrance. As the eldest sisters are subjected to virginity tests and married off one by one, the younger sisters look on in fear and resolve not to succumb to the same fate. Co-written by Ergüven and noted writer-director Alice Winocour (Disorder), Mustang is "[a] beautifully mounted debut … the director proves especially skilled with her cast of newcomers[,] whose powerful individualism as well as their vibrant bond together are perfect vessels for the script's message" (Variety).

Credits
Director(s): Deniz Gamze Ergüven
Rating: PG
Language: Turkish
Year: 2015
Country: Turkey/France/Germany/Qatar

Runtime: 94 minutes