Last update - 00:00 25/02/2008
Israeli Oscar hopeful 'Beaufort' pipped by Austrian entry
By News Agencies
U.S.-born Israeli director Joseph Cedar's hopes of winning the Oscar for Best Foreign film with "Beaufort" were dashed early Monday, as the prize went to Austrian movie "The Counterfeiters".
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday ended his opening statement at the weekly cabinet meeting by saying he was pulling for Israel's entry at Sunday night's Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood.
"The time has come for an Israeli movie to win the Oscar," he told his
ministers.
"This movie ["Beaufort"] definitely represents an ability, quality and depth that deserve recognition, and I wish for Yossi [Joseph] Cedar, the director, and all his actors to receive this recognition and that the wars of Israel will become topics for movies and not our daily reality."
Beaufort, directed by U.S.-born Israeli Joseph Cedar, tells the story of a small group of Israel Defense Forces soldiers stationed in an outpost in the final days prior to the IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000.
The entry sparked a national controversy because one-third of the actors - depicting soldiers during Israel's 2000 withdrawal from Lebanon - had not completed the country's mandatory three years of military service.
"The Counterfeiters", an Austrian tale of a master forger forced to work for Nazis in a concentration camp, won the foreign-language Oscar, beating out Beaufort.
Directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky and based on printer Adolph Burger's memoir The Devil's Workshop, "The Counterfeiters" uses documentary-style handheld camera and quick zooms for a unique look at a little-known World War II story.
"There have been some great Austrian filmmakers working here, Ruzowitzky said in his acceptance speech. "Thinking of Billy Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, Otto Preminger, most of them had to leave my country because of the Nazis, so it sort of makes sense that the first Austrian movie to win an Oscar is about the Nazis' crimes."
Ruzowitzky, who was raised in Germany, said backstage that Nazi crimes had been a part of his family history. "I always felt I should make a statement about this period of time," he said.
Coen win Oscar for 'No Country'
Meanwhile, Hollywood's establishment embraced two of the film industry's quintessential mavericks on Sunday as brothers Joel and Ethan Coen won a joint Oscar for their work directing "No Country For Old Men."
The Coen brothers, who earlier clinched an Oscar for the film's adapted screenplay, become only the second pair of credited filmmakers to share the Academy Award for best directing, following in the footsteps of Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins for the 1961 musical "West Side Story."
The Coens - Joel, 53, and Ethan, 50 - were considered clear Oscar favorites after sweeping the 2007 film honors of Hollywood's major talent guilds, including the Directors Guild of America. They got their first taste of Oscar glory 11 years ago with a win for their original screenplay for "Fargo."
But Sunday's Academy Award triumph represents the ultimate seal of Hollywood appreciation for the two auteurs, who have built their career and a loyal cult following as film industry outsiders.
"No Country" marks both a departure - their first film based entirely on a novel - and a return to form for the Coens with its tale of highly idiosyncratic characters caught up in events unleashed by nefarious plans gone horribly wrong.
Blending and bending elements of the thriller and western genres, "No Country" is a tale of fear, despair and moral decay wrapped in a terse and violent chase film.
One of the Coens' darker offerings, it stands as their biggest commercial success, grossing more than $92 million worldwide.
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