You’d have to go way back until 1988’s Bille August’s Pelle the Conqueror to find the last picture to win both the Cannes Palme d’or and the Oscar for Best Foreign film in the same year. Germany stands a good chance at achieving this rare double feat with a film that is oddly set around the same point in time as August’s turn of the 19th century Danish film. The best World War-related film out of Cannes this year, Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon was helped along by the more outspoken jury member this year for the Palme D’or won. While clearly not Haneke’s career’s best, on the flip-side, it my be the most accessible film he’ll ever make – good for the set in their ways voting Academy.
For Das weiße Band to win, Sony Pictures Classics who own the U.S domestic rights and plan to release the film in February of next year, will have to revise their plans after last year’s fiasco where Departures was deemed more worthy of Best Foreign Picture, somehow beating out SPC’s The Class and Waltz with Bashir.
Variety reminds those who love subtitles that the closing date for submissions to the foreign language category is October 1st and the five nominees come out right after Sundance on the 2nd of February.
