List of submissions to the 78th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Short descriptionTemplate:Template other This is a list of submissions to the 78th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film every year since the award was created in 1956. The award is handed out annually by the Academy to a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States that contains primarily non-English dialogue. The Foreign Language Film Award Committee oversees the process and reviews all the submitted films.

For the 78th Academy Awards, sixty-two countries submitted films to the Academy, and fifty-eight of those films were accepted for review by the Academy. The submissions of Austria and Greece were rejected before the formal review process and the submissions of Uruguay and Venezuela did not appear in the final list; meanwhile, those from Bolivia, Netherlands, Singapore and Tajikistan were later disqualified by the Academy. Costa Rica, Iraq and Fiji submitted films for the first time.

South Africa won the award for the first time with Tsotsi by Gavin Hood.

Submissions

Submitting country	Film title used in nomination	Original title	Language(s)	Director(s)	Result
	El Aura		Spanish	Fabián Bielinsky	Template:Notnom
	Caché		French	Michael Haneke	Disqualified
	Shyamol Chhaya	শ্যামল ছায়া	Bengali	Humayun Ahmed	Template:Notnom
	The Child	L'Enfant	French	Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne	Template:Notnom
	Say Good Morning to Dad	Di buen día a papá	Spanish	Fernando Vargas	Disqualified
	Totally Personal	Sasvim lično	Serbian, English, Bosnian	Nedžad Begović	Template:Notnom
	Two Sons of Francisco	Dois Filhos de Francisco	Brazilian Portuguese	Breno Silveira	Template:Notnom
	Stolen Eyes	Откраднати очи	Bulgarian, Turkish	Radoslav Spassov	Template:Notnom
	C.R.A.Z.Y.		French	Jean-Marc Vallée	Template:Notnom
	Play		Spanish	Alicia Scherson	Template:Notnom
	The Promise	无极	Mandarin	Chen Kaige	Template:Notnom
	La Sombra del Caminante		Spanish	Ciro Guerra	Template:Notnom
	Caribe			Esteban Ramírez	Template:Notnom
	A Wonderful Night in Split	Ta divna splitska noć	Croatian, Serbian, English	Arsen Anton Ostojić	Template:Notnom
	Viva Cuba		Spanish	Juan Carlos Cremata Malberti	Template:Notnom
	Something Like Happiness	Štěstí	Czech	Bohdan Sláma	Template:Notnom
	Adam's Apples	Adams Æbler	Danish	Anders Thomas Jensen	Template:Notnom
	Shop of Dreams	Stiilipidu	Estonian	Peeter Urbla	Template:Notnom
	The Land Has Eyes	Pear ta ma ʻon maf	Rotuman, English	Vilsoni Hereniko	Template:Notnom
	Mother of Mine	Äideistä parhain / Den bästa av mödrar	Finnish, Swedish	Klaus Härö	Template:Notnom
	Joyeux Noël		French, German, English	Christian Carion	Nominated
	Tbilisi-Tbilisi	თბილისი-თბილისი	Georgian	Levan Zakareishvili	Template:Notnom
	Sophie Scholl – The Final Days	Sophie Scholl – Die letzten Tage	German	Marc Rothemund	Nominated
	Brides	Νύφες	Greek, English	Pantelis Voulgaris	Disqualified
	Perhaps Love	如果·愛	Cantonese, Mandarin	Peter Ho-Sun Chan	Template:Notnom
	Fateless	Sorstalanság	Hungarian, German, English	Lajos Koltai	Template:Notnom
	Ahead of Time	Í takt við tímann	Icelandic	Ágúst Guðmundsson	Template:Notnom
	Paheli	पहेली	Hindi	Amol Palekar	Template:Notnom
	Gie		Indonesian	Riri Riza	Template:Notnom
	So Close, So Far	خیلی دور، خیلی نزدیک	Persian	Reza Mir Karimi	Template:Notnom
Iraq	Requiem of Snow	شیوەنی بەفر	Kurdish	Jamil Rostami	Template:Notnom
	What a Wonderful Place	איזה מקום נפלא	Hebrew, Russian, Filipino, Tagalog, English	Eyal Halfon	Template:Notnom
	Don't Tell	La bestia nel cuore	Italian, English	Cristina Comencini	Nominated
	Blood and Bones	血と骨	Japanese, Korean	Yoichi Sai	Template:Notnom
Template:Flagcountry	Welcome to Dongmakgol	웰컴 투 동막골	Korean	Park Kwang-hyun	Template:Notnom
	Renart the Fox	Le Roman de Renart	French	Thierry Schiel	Template:Notnom
	Al otro lado		Spanish, Arabic	Gustavo Loza	Template:Notnom
	The Cave of the Yellow Dog	Шар нохойн там	Mongolian	Byambasuren Davaa	Template:Notnom
	Bluebird		Dutch	Mijke de Jong	Disqualified
	Kissed by Winter	Vinterkyss	Norwegian, Swedish, English	Sara Johnsen	Template:Notnom
	Paradise Now	الجنّة الآن	Palestinian Arabic, English	Hany Abu-Assad	Nominated
	Days of Santiago	Días de Santiago	Spanish	Josué Méndez	Template:Notnom
	The Collector	Komornik	Polish	Feliks Falk	Template:Notnom
	Noite Escura		Portuguese, Russian	João Canijo	Template:Notnom
	Cayo		Spanish	Vicente Juarbe	Template:Notnom
	The Death of Mr. Lazarescu	Moartea domnului Lăzărescu	Romanian	Cristi Puiu	Template:Notnom
	The Italian	Итальянец	Russian, Italian, English	Andrei Kravchuk	Template:Notnom
	Midwinter Night's Dream	Сан зимске ноћи	Serbian	Goran Paskaljević	Template:Notnom
	Be with Me		English, Hokkien, Mandarin, Cantonese	Eric Khoo	Disqualified
	The City of the Sun	Slnečný štát	Slovak, Czech	Martin Šulík	Template:Notnom
	Ruins	Ruševine	Slovene	Janez Burger	Template:Notnom
	Tsotsi		Setswana, Zulu, Sesotho, Xhosa, Afrikaans, English	Gavin Hood	Won Academy Award
	Obaba		Spanish	Montxo Armendáriz	Template:Notnom
	Zozo		Swedish, Arabic	Josef Fares	Template:Notnom
	Tout un Hiver sans Feu		French, Albanian	Greg Zglinski	Template:Notnom
	The Wayward Cloud	天邊一朵雲	Mandarin	Tsai Ming-liang	Template:Notnom
	Sex & Philosophy	Ҷинс ва фалсафа	Russian, Tajik	Mohsen Makhmalbaf	Disqualified
	The Tin Mine	มหา’ลัย เหมืองแร่	Thai	Jira Maligool	Template:Notnom
	Lovelorn	Gönül Yarası	Turkish	Yavuz Turgul	Template:Notnom
	Alma Mater		Spanish	Álvaro Buela	Not on the final list
Template:Flagcountry	1888: The Extraordinary Voyage of the Santa Isabel	1888: El Extraordinario Viaje de la Santa Isabel		Alfredo Anzola	Disqualified
	The Buffalo Boy	Mùa len trâu	Vietnamese	Nguyen Vo Nghiem Minh	Template:Notnom

Notes

• Template:Flagicon Austria's submission, Caché, was disqualified because the film was completely in French, and not in a language indigenous to Austria.
• Template:Flagicon Bolivia's submission, Say Good Morning to Dad, was disqualified because a print of the film did not arrive at the Academy in time.
• Template:Flagicon Private was originally selected but the Academy informed Italy that the film would be disqualified for not being in Italian. The Italian Academy appealed the decision, but ended up selecting a new film
• Template:Flagicon Nepal elected to send Basain, but due to its release date, it was submitted the following year instead.
• Template:Flagicon The submission of the Netherlands, Bluebird, disqualified because it was too similar to a version previously aired on Dutch television; it was too late to select another Dutch film.
• Template:Flagicon Paradise Now was submitted as coming from "Palestine", which was used on the web page and the official notices of the Academy. It was announced at the awards ceremony as from "the Palestinian Territories".
• Template:Flagicon The Philippines failed to send a film for the first time in ten years; their Film Academy claimed they thought they hadn't been invited after the official invitation failed to reach their new address.
• Template:Flagicon Singapore's submission, Be with Me, was disqualified after its official screening for being mostly in English and not in a Foreign Language
• Template:Flagicon Tajikistan's submission, Sex & Philosophy, was disqualified because a print of the film did not arrive at the Academy in time
• Template:Flagicon Uruguay reportedly selected Álvaro Buela's Alma Mater, but it only ended up sent to the Goya Awards.
• Template:Flagicon Venezuela selected 1888: The Extraordinary Voyage of the Santa Isabel, but their entry was delayed by a lawsuit and they missed the deadline
• Among the other countries which were officially invited to submit a film, but did not, were Afghanistan, Algeria, Australia, Ecuador, Egypt, Lebanon, Macedonia, Malaysia, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.