March 5, 2018
While we were waiting to learn which movies took this years’ Oscars last night, we decided to look into how the Slovenian film industry has done so far in the category of foreign language film. Since 1993, the national candidate for this award has been selected by the Association of Slovenian filmmakers (Društvo slovenskih filmskih ustvarjalecev, DSFU) and so far none of the Slovenian entries has been nominated for the award yet.
This year’s Slovenian candidate was a film called Rudar (Miner), a rather weak movie for this year’s very strong team of nominees:
A Fantastic Women, Chile (the winner)
The Square, Sweden
On Body and Soul, Hungary
The Insult, Lebanon
Loveless, Russia
Miner (Slovenian, not nominated)
However, in 2002 the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film went to the European co-production No Man’s Land, a Balkan war movie which entered the competition under the Bosnian flag. As much of the movie was shot at locations in Slovenia, which also contributed several actors and about ten percent of the film’s budget, the film, and its Oscar, are considered a bit Slovenian as well.
The only time a film by a Slovenian director was nominated was in 1960, with another war themed movie, Deveti krog (The Ninth Circle) produced in Croatia and directed by France Štiglic.
You can watch No Man’s Land in full and with English subtitles below:
