Nine on foreign-pic Oscar shortlist

January 17, 2007 Nine of 61 films that originally qualified for consideration by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for the foreign-language film Oscar have advanced to the final voting phase. Instead of several hundred members of the foreign-language film committee selecting the five nominees, this year -- during what the Academy calls Phase I -- their ballots selected nine finalists for nomination. The films are Algeria's "Days of Glory," directed by Rachid Bouchareb (distributed in the U.S. by the Weinstein Co.); Canada's "Water," by Deepa Mehta (Fox Searchlight); Denmark's "After the Wedding," by Susanne Bier (IFC Films); France's "Avenue Montaigne," by Daniele Thompson (ThinkFilm); Germany's "The Lives of Others," by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (Sony Pictures Classics); Mexico's "Pan's Labyrinth," by Guillermo del Toro (Picturehouse); the Netherlands' "Black Book," by Paul Verhoeven (Sony Pictures Classics); Spain's "Volver," directed by Pedro Almodovar (Sony Pictures Classics); and Switzerland's "Vitus," by Fredi M. Murer (Sony Pictures Classics).

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