The people behind the Oscars have gone and refused entry for the official Dutch entry this year, and they’ve notified them so late that there’s no chance of submitting another entry! Bluebird has been dropped for being aired on TV already.
Okay, it’s a major rule of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, and I guess everyone in the know is aware of it, but it seems the timing has been left a little late for any new submissions. According to Reuters:
Director Mijke de Jong’s “Bluebird,” about a 13-year-old girl who faces up to bullying at school, previously aired on Dutch television…
…”The fact that the film has been newly edited for cinema was not accepted. According to the Academy, there was not enough difference between the two versions,” Holland Film spokesperson Marlies Baltus said.
Because of the late notification at the end of November, Holland Film has not been able to submit a new entry…
…The Netherlands has had its foreign-language Oscar submission rejected once before. In 1988, the original version of “The Vanishing” (Spoorloos) by George Sluizer was disqualified because the film, set primarily in France, did not contain enough Dutch dialogue.
Eh? Actually you can kind of understand the reasoning here, although the lateness is a bit poor, but in 1988 what’s that all about? All is not lost for the Dutch though, they have another entrant.
…Hany Abu Assad’s “Paradise Now,” about two potential Palestinian suicide bombers. The Dutch-German-French-Israeli-Palestinian co-production nabbed a Golden Globe nomination this week. Oscar nominations in all categories will be announced on January 31.
