MANILA, Philippines - Despite numerous predictions that indie film "Bwakaw" has a strong fighting chance in being shortlisted at the Best Foreign Feature Film category of the 85th Academy Awards (Oscar), the Jun Lana-helmed film failed to make it to the cut.
Nevertheless, the producers of the critically-acclaimed Eddie Garcia-starrer remain grateful for the memorable journey that the film has so far gone through.
"Thank you everyone for supporting Bwakaw on her Oscar journey! It was a fun ride for our little big film! One day a Filipino movie will win!" wrote producer and TV5 executive Perci Intalan on his Twitter account.
Lana also thanked their film's supporters and waxed nostalgic on his Twitter account about how much it was "a fun ride for our little big film!"
The nine films that made it into the shortlist of the Foreign Language Film category, according to Academy's release are as follows:
Austria - "Amour"
Canada - "War Witch"
Chile - "No"
Denmark - "A Royal Affair"
France - "The Intouchables"
Iceland - "The Deep"
Norway - "Kon-Tiki"
Romania - "Beyond the Hills"
Switzerland - "Sister"
Come Jan. 10, during the announcement of the official set of Academy nominees for next year, only five of these nine films would be chosen as official nominees for the Foreign Language Film category.
The nominations, According to the release, the nominations were to be determined in two phases:
The Phase I committee consisted of hundreds of Los Angeles-based members who screened the 71 eligible films between mid-October and Dec.17. After that, the group put out their top six choices, which were "augmented by three additional selections voted by the Academy's Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee" to constitute the shortlist.
"The shortlist will be winnowed down to the five nominees by specially invited committees in New York and Los Angeles. They will spend Jan. 4 through Jan. 6, viewing three films each day and then casting their ballots," the release read.
