as the best foreign language film of 2011, making it likely a serious contender for the Oscar for best foreign film.
The National Board of Review and the New York Film Critics Circle last week both named their choices for best actor, actress, director and other awards, including Best Foreign Language Film. Both named “Nader and Simin” as the Best Foreign Language Film.
While those two groups are separate from the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences, which awards the Oscars, the fact that they both named the Iranian film bodes well for “Nader and Simin” to at least win an Oscar nomination.
Iran has never won an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. In fact, it has only been nominated once—in 1999 for Majid Majidi’s “Children of Heaven.”
Iran submitted “Nader and Simin” as Iran’s entry for the 2011 Best Foreign Language Film competition. More than 60 countries have submitted films. Those films are now being reviewed in Hollywood and the actual nominees will be named January 24.
The National Board of review is an association of film historians, students and academics founded in 1909. The New York Film Critics Circle is a body of 33 New York-based critics founded in 1935. It calls itself a “principled alternative to the Oscars, honoring esthetic merit in a forum that is immune to commercial and political pressures.”
“Nader and Simin: A Separation,” directed by Asghar Farhadi, is a story of the break-up of the marriage of a middle-class couple who struggle with how to handle that and the future of their only child.
“Nader and Simin” won the Golden Bear for best film of the year at the Berlin Film Festival and its entire cast won the Silver Bears for best actress and best actor. The film has received a number of other accolades around the world.
The film is being released in the United States by Sony Pictures Classics on December 30. That timing makes it eligible for consideration in other Oscar categories such as Best Director and Best Screenplay.
The film was released in June in France, where it has been viewed by more than 800,000 filmgoers and became a “surprise” success, in the words of the daily Le Monde.
About 60 non-English language films are submitted each year by that many countries to the US Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences. The films are viewed by a group of Hollywood entertainment industry members who nominate five of those films in late January. The actual Oscar winners are announced in late February.
Over the years, four Majidi films have been submitted to the Oscar committee, more than for any other Iranian director. Two films by Bahman Qobadi and, with this year’s selection, two films by Asghar Farhadi have been selected.
Iran first submitted a film for the Oscars in 1978 and 1979. With the revolution, the Islamic Republic halted submissions until 1995 when they resumed.
A board of nine industry figures named by the Farabi Cinematic Foundation, part of the Culture Ministry, chooses the Iranian submission each year.