Maybe they liked the film so much that they decided NOT to award it this year for foreign film so it can compete in all other categories next year...

I read somewhere that 4 Months had a one-week qualifying run in 2007.

Yup....it did. A one-week-one-theater qualifying run. What a mistake.

I think academy voters were always secretly getting their votes from writers(because they know better), and now that they went on strike they're all like LOL WTF DO I DO WTF DO I DO? Michael Clayton for BP and art direction? OK. Diving Bell for BP? OK. 4 Months for foreign? Ew, I'm Republican.

I can't think of any other explanation for this year.

Seriously, I bet all the films eligible aren't even as good as the trailer for 4 Months, 3 Weeks, & 2 Days.

Foreign Film Snubs Scandal Not Going Away
Posted by Sasha Stone on Jan 19th, 2008


Ann Hornaday at the Washington Post continues to expose the embarrassing omissions by the foreign film branch and subsequent outcry:
The outcry was so forceful and so immediate that the committee’s chairman has vowed to change the Academy’s nominating procedures for this perennially problematic category. Enduring arguments — that the retired Academy members who tend to serve on the committee habitually shut out the most vibrant and edgy examples of world cinema — are being revived. Even the notion of the Best Foreign Language Film category itself has come under fire as obsolete in an increasingly cosmopolitan and porous global film culture.
More after the cut.
The article continues:
But two of the most highly regarded foreign films of 2007 conspicuously did not make the cut: the Romanian film “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, as well as several other critics’ and festival prizes, and “Persepolis,” an animated film from France by the Iranian graphic artist Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud that won its own share of laurels and landed on several critics’ year-end top 10 lists.
The absence of those two titles — as well as ones from such vibrant film cultures as Mexico (”Silent Light”) and Korea (”Secret Sunshine”) — stirred up immediate ire in film circles, mostly expressed in the blogosphere that covers Hollywood. “How Do You Say ‘Oscar Scandal’ in Romanian?” read the headline on LA Weekly critic Scott Foundas’s Foundas & Taylor on Film blog the day the shortlist was announced. Foundas called the omission of “4 Months,” by writer-director Cristian Mungiu, “as embarrassing a blunder as any in the Academy’s history.”
Todd Hitchcock, who programs films at the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center, said he reacted to the announcement with “disbelief.” Noting that a clear consensus had been built throughout last year regarding the artistic merits of both “4 Months” and “Persepolis” — which earned 20 awards between them — he called the controversy “not just a few critics carping about how they know better. This is shocking across the board.” (Both films played to sold-out audiences at AFI’s European Union Showcase last November.)
Reached by phone on Thursday, Mark Johnson, chairman of the nominating committee for the foreign-language film Oscar, was clearly upset, although he took pains to make clear he didn’t take issue with the nine films that were selected. “The outcome is noteworthy not for what made it — it’s not like some ridiculous movies made it onto a list they shouldn’t be on — it’s what didn’t make it.” Citing “4 Months” and “Persepolis” by name, Johnson said, “It’s just inconceivable to me that they weren’t included.”
It got fixed but it ain’t fixed:
The exclusions are especially distressing to Johnson in light of recent reforms he made to the nominating process. Along with documentaries, foreign-language films aren’t nominated by people in their own “craft” categories (such as directors, cinematographers and actors), but by members of the Academy at large — who commit to watching around 14 or 15 movies over two months.
Because the process is a significant time commitment (foreign-language committee members can’t watch the films on DVD, only at Academy-sanctioned screenings), the demographics of the committee have skewed toward people with time on their hands — in other words, retirees. The result, many observers say, are films that are safe, conventional and relatively mainstream, both in form and content.
To rectify that, Johnson last year instituted a process by which members of the committee, which numbers around 400, would come up with a shortlist of nine films. Then a smaller group, composed of 10 randomly selected committee members as well as 30 specially invited, more professionally active members (10 in New York and 20 in Los Angeles), would winnow those down to the five nominees.
“Last year was the first year” of trying that process, Johnson said, “and it worked very well. I was really happy with it.” Among the nominees selected last year were Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth,” the Algerian film “Days of Glory,” Denmark’s “After the Wedding” and the Canadian film “Water.” The Oscar winner was the German Cold War drama “The Lives of Others.”
They plan to fix it. Or try to.
Whatever the reasons, Johnson avers, the process is clearly in need of tinkering. He intends to approach the Academy’s Board of Governors, which oversees rule changes, soon after the awards ceremony on Feb. 24. “I think we have to do some kind of radical change and hopefully we can come up with a system that works better,” Johnson said.
The Academy are, at some point, going to have to dump this antiquated category. It simply doesn’t suit the way of the world anymore. American films aren’t matching foreign films in terms of ideas, originality, artistic bravery.
What has happened is that the global film community has blossomed around the Academy. Their original intent has been lost. This is true, I would say, of the doc and animation categories as well. The Oscar brings the project prestige for a lifetime but in terms of bringing these films to audiences — the audiences are way ahead of the Academy and thus, these categories feel obsolete.