DUBAI: And the winner might be… Lebanon.
For the first time ever a Lebanese film has been nominated for an Oscars Academy Award.
Ziad Doueri’s “The Insult” has made it through to the final five in the Foreign Language Film category of the Academy Awards 2018, up against films from Chile, Russia, Hungary and Sweden.
“The Insult” (“L’Insulte”) is a tense Beirut-set courtroom thriller starring Adel Karam, Kamel El Basha and Camille Salameh. It is about an insult being blown out of all proportion, resulting in a Lebanese Christian and a Palestinian refugee battling it out in court.
The film, which picked up the Best Actor award for El Basha at the Venice Film Festival, was the 14th film to be submitted to the Oscars by Lebanon since 1978, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Other notable titles include Nadine Labaki’s 2011 drama “Where Do We Go Now?” that was widely expected to be nominated.
The nomination is remarkable considering the furor that erupted in Lebanon surrounding “The Insult,” including a boycott campaign launched against the film due to Doueri’s previous feature film, “The Attack,” having partly been filmed in Israel. Doueri was convinced “The Insult” wouldn’t even get released in Lebanon, he told The Hollywood Reporter.
The four other films rounding out the Foreign Language Film category of the oscars are “A Fantastic Woman” (Chile), “Loveless” (Russia), “On Body and Soul” (Hungary), and “The Square” (Sweden).
The Oscars Academy Awards 2018 takes place on Mar. 4 in Los Angeles.
Lebanon heads to the Oscars for the first time with “The Insult” nomination
Lebanon heads to the Oscars for the first time with “The Insult” nomination
