Almost overslept

The film "The Return" was nominated for an Oscar late

On Friday, October 3, information appeared in the media that Andrei Zvyagintsev’s film “The Return” was nominated for an Oscar from Russia. It was reported that the Russian nomination commission made its choice after considering several candidate films: “Koktebel” by Alexei Popogrebsky and Boris Khlebnikov, “Bless the Woman” by Stanislav Govorukhin, “Magnetic Storms” by Vadim Abdrashitov, “Russian Ark” by Alexander Sokurov, “Walk” Alexey Uchitel. They also named “Old Women” by Gennady Sidorov and “The Train is Moving” by Alexei German Jr., but they were not released and cannot formally claim anything.

Well, everything would be fine, the film-winner of the Venice Film Festival, which received two Golden Lions, fully deserves the high honor of representing Russia in the category “Best Foreign Language Film”, if, of course, American academics consider it possible to include it there. However, it turned out that this decision, so good at first glance, has a rather unsightly backstory.

Many have already forgotten, but last year the Oscar nomination was accompanied by a loud scandal . Then, instead of the expected “Cuckoo”, Andrei Konchalovsky’s “House of Fools” was nominated, and the day before, the nomination commission from the interdepartmental organization, which for ten years had at least fulfilled its purpose, hastily became the structure of the new National Academy of Cinematography and Cinematographic Science, created by Nikita Mikhalkov .

Several people were excluded from the commission without any warning or even notification: Pavel Chukhrai, Sergei Bodrov, Alexander Khvan, Rustam Ibragimbekov, Irina Rubanova, Daniil Dondurei, Eleonora Maklakova, Sergei Lazaruk; By decision of the secretariat of the RF IC, others were introduced in their place. Vladimir Menshov was appointed chairman instead of Elem Klimov. Ultimately, House of Fools was not included in the nomination. This, of course, has happened before, but over the past ten years Russia has had four Oscar nominations and received one statuette.

This time, the American Film Academy decided to change the timing of the Oscars. The 76th awards ceremony will take place on February 29, three weeks earlier than before. The presentation dates have changed accordingly: in the category “Best Foreign Language Film” the dead line is scheduled for October 1 instead of October 30. There is a corresponding notice about this on the Oscar website. On September 29, the Russian website Film.ru announced that “the deadline for making decisions expires on October 1,” and named films nominated from other countries, for example, “Invasion of the Barbarians” (Canada), “Goodbye, Lenin!” (Germany), “Spring, summer, autumn, winter... and spring” (Korea) and others. “The Russian candidacy is still unknown,” the site reported.

However, members of the commission do not read the sites, and either did not know about the change in deadlines or forgot. In September, however, a commission meeting was held at which options were discussed. The main rivals were “Return” and “Russian Ark”. The remaining films were practically not discussed, because, firstly, they were unknown in the American box office, and secondly, as the commission members quite reasonably considered, they had little chance of attracting the attention of American academics. The most famous Russian film in America, of course, is Russian Ark; its box office receipts among films with limited release are record high (the film grossed $3 million), but it appeared in worldwide box office in 2002, which gave rise to its reject. True, it was released in America in December, which is quite permissible under the terms of the Oscars, which consider films released after October 30. However, the commission members apparently did not know this or considered that the new and sensational “Return” had more chances. In any case, they did not inform the public about their doubts and problems, although they intended, in principle, to announce to the press that work on the nomination had begun.

The worst thing is that they did not submit any information to the American Academy by October 1. This began to worry the American distributors of the film “The Return”; they called Russia and made waves. Subsequently, events in the commission developed like those of careless students. Information about the meeting, supposedly scheduled for Friday, appeared in the media on the evening of Thursday, October 2, and at that time a protocol on the nomination of “Return” was sent to America, where it was still morning. Thus, thanks to the time difference, the delay was half a day, and the lenient staff of the American Academy forgave his Russian applicant. So everything ended well for The Return.

However, it will be sad if the Russian commission, which allowed itself to be unforgivably negligent, gets away with this. It is obvious that the National Academy has neither the strength nor the means for normal work, and it would be much more reasonable to entrust it to other structures. For example, the Ministry of Culture, which in words actively cares about the development of Russian cinema and its reputation in the world.

In the meantime, American distributors have to worry about the fate of the film, made without a penny of state money, without any participation of the Russian Investigative Committee and its members, not to mention the National Academy, which announced itself with such pomp and noise last year.

By the way, the Golden Eagle Award ceremony (the second task of the newly created academy known to the public) has not yet been officially announced. At first it was planned for the fall, but now, they say, it has been decided to postpone it to the end of January. And with such an attitude to the matter, one can hardly count on building the authority of the award, the organizers of which themselves called it the main national award.

Commission version

The press center of the RF IC on Friday distributed an explanation from the chairman of the commission of the National Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Russia on the nomination of Russian films for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, film director Vladimir MENSHOV.

- On October 3, we planned to gather and make our final choice, as was prescribed and announced earlier. But last night (October 2 - Ed. ) there was a call from the American Film Academy with a request to present our results on October 1 (in America it was still October 1). Therefore, we held an urgent vote, sending the necessary papers to all members of the commission, and now we have the final results. The votes were distributed as follows: “Magnetic Storms” – two votes, “Russian Ark” – two, “Old Women” – one vote, “Bless the Woman” – one, “Return” – eight votes. Personally, I voted for "Return". I hope that this film has a good chance of getting into the top five nominees for best foreign film. We all watched it on video. We didn't have any arguments. It turned out to be a very worthy, well-made picture. I wanted to see it, of course, in the hall; judging by the image, it is probably much more beautiful on the big screen, since there are a lot of landscapes in the film. And the sound, of course, sounds more expressive from a movie screen. And the audience's reaction will add warmth to this picture. A very worthy picture.

Alena Solntseva