La Jornada – Russia boycotts the Oscars; Won’t submit a Best Picture nomination

Madrid. Russia will not submit any films in the Best International Feature Film category before the 95th Academy Awards. The decision was announced by the Russian Film Academy and reflects growing tensions between the United States and Russia since the country led by Vladimir Putin began the invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

“The Board of Directors of the Russian Film Academy has decided not to nominate any Russian film for the 2022 Academy Awards,” reads the statement from the Russian Film Authority collected before Deadline. Following the announcement, the head of the Russian selection committee for the Oscars, Pavel Chukray, resigned in protest of the decision.

According to state news agency TASS, Chokhri called the decision not to submit any films to the Oscars as “illegal” and denounced it was made without consultation. Said the director in charge of titles like driver for vera He added that director Nikolai Dostal is also leaving the institution.

In the past decade, Russia had five films that made their debut in the Best International Film category, and two of them made it into the top five, the most recent of which is without love (without love) by Andrey Zvyagintsev in 2017. The only time a Russian film won the bust was in 1994 thanks to the film the sun burned it by Nikita Mikhalkov.