The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, organizers of the annual Oscars, revealed shortlists for documentaries, foreign language films, music, visual effects, and shorts on Monday, as the nominations for the 2019 ceremony draws closer.

Left out by the Academy was Iran's ‘No Date, No Signature’ which has won many international titles, including the Best Director and Best Actor awards at the Venice Horizons section of the 74th Venice Film Festival, Best Fiction Feature award at BangkokThai International Film Festival (BangIFF), Hold Hugo Grand Prize at 2017 Chicago International Film Festival, Best Film Award at the Brussels International Film Festival, Best Director award at Russia’s Mirror International Film Festival, and three Crystal Simorgh awards for best director, best actor in a supporting role and best sound mixer at the 35th Fajr Film Festival.

The movie narrates the story of a forensic pathologist Dr Nariman who has a car accident with a motorcyclist and injures his 8-year-old son. He offers to take the child to a clinic nearby, but the father refuses his help and money. Few days after, in the hospital where he works, Dr Nariman finds out that the little boy has been brought for an autopsy after a suspicious death. Dr Nariman is facing a dilemma: is he responsible for the child's death due to the car accident or the child died of food poisoning according to other doctors' diagnosis?

The shortlist for best foreign-language film, which was drawn from a long list of 87 titles, includes most of the presumptive frontrunners:

Foreign Language Film category

Colombia, ‘Birds of Passage’

Denmark, ‘The Guilty’

Germany, ‘Never Look Away’

Japan, ‘Shoplifters’

Kazakhstan, ‘Ayka’

Lebanon, ‘Capernaum’

Mexico, ‘Roma’

Poland, ‘Cold War’

South Korea, ‘Burning’

For the 2019 Oscars, 87 countries submitted eligible entries, down from 92 last year. The shortlist of nine came from the foreign-language committee: six from the general committee drawn from participating voters from all Academy branches, and three from the executive committee appointed by this year’s new foreign-language czars, screenwriter Larry Karaszewski and Participant’s Diane Weyermann.

Here you can see the shortlists for documentaries, foreign language films, music, visual effects, and shorts.

Source:Mehr News