Congratulations to Guillermo Del Toro and his excellent new film, Pan’s Labyrinth: this morning at the New York Film Festival (Pan is closing the Festival this year) it was announced that Pan was Mexico’s submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
I talked to Guillermo this weekend about just such an eventuality, specifically because I was confused whether Pan – which was shot and set in Spain – would be considered a Spanish or Mexican movie. If Pan was Spanish, I reasoned, it wouldn’t stand a chance in a year with a (supposedly very good) new Pedro Almodovar film. But the movie is indeed Mexican, and now it’s officially on the Oscar longlist.
This is just part of the battle for Pan, though. The movie joins a list of films from other nations – last year there were 63 submissions – and the Academy chooses five to make it to the actual Oscar night. I do think that Pan has a better than average chance, and not just because it’s a good film, but because by the time the ballots go out it will be one of the more high profile submissions.
Let’s hope that this isn’t the only time Pan’s Labyrinth and Oscar are mentioned in the same breath – the film is, to me, a real contender for a number of other awards ranging from the technical to the creative.