Los Angeles, Dec 23 (IANS): Indian filmmaker Geetu Mohandas's "Liar's Dice", which was India's official entry for the foreign language film category at the Academy Awards, has not made it to the first phase of the nomination shortlist.
"Liar's Dice", which tells the story of a young mother who takes her daughter in search for her missing husband, was chosen by the Film Federation of India (FFI) out of among 30 shortlisted movies, to represent the country at prestigious Oscars in the foreign language film category.
"Liar's Dice" was a part of the 83 films that had originally been considered in the category. But now, it has failed to make its way into a list of nine feature movies, which will advance to the next round of voting by the jury for the 87th Academy Awards, according to an update on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences website.
The nine shortlisted films are: Damián Szifrón's "Wild Tales" (Argentina), Zaza Urushadze's "Tangerines" (Estonia), George Ovashvili's "Corn Island" (Georgia), Abderrahmane Sissako's "Timbuktu" (Mauritania), Paula van der Oest's "Accused" (Netherlands), Pawel Pawlikowski's "Ida" (Poland), Andrey Zvyagintsev's "Leviathan" (Russia), Ruben Östlund's "Force Majeure" (Sweden) and Alberto Arvelo's "The Liberator" (Venezuela).
The foreign language film nominations for 2014 are being determined in two phases. The phase-1 committee, consisting of several hundred local Academy members, screened the original submissions in the category between mid-October and Dec 15.
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 here and in New York and, for the first time, London. They will spend Jan 9-11, viewing three films each day and then casting their ballots.
The 87th Academy Awards nominations will be announced live Jan 15, 2015 at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn theater.
The Oscars will be held Feb 22, 2015 at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood and Highland Center in Hollywood. The presentation ceremony will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.