List of Pakistani submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Encyclopedia
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
submitted films for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
in 1959 and 1963.
As of 2009, one hundred different countries have submitted films for Oscar consideration in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Although Pakistan was among the first countries to enter the competition (countries were first invited to send films in 1956; Pakistan sent its first film in 1959), they have not sent any films in the past forty-five years and they no longer have an active committee which has the power to submit films to the competition. Of the one-hundred participant countries, 88 of them have submitted films in the past ten years, while 99 have submitted films in the past forty years. Pakistan is the only country to be absent for such a long time.
Submissions
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film since 1956. The Foreign Language Film Award Committee oversees the process and reviews all the submitted films. Following this, they vote via secret ballotSecret ballot
The secret ballot is a voting method in which a voter's choices in an election or a referendum are anonymous. The key aim is to ensure the voter records a sincere choice by forestalling attempts to influence the voter by intimidation or bribery. The system is one means of achieving the goal of...
to determine the five nominees for the award. Below is a list of the films that have been submitted by Pakistan for review by the Academy for the award by year and the respective Academy Awards ceremony.
Both Pakistani submissions were musical-dramas in Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
.
| Year (Ceremony) | Film title used in nomination | Original title | Director | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1959 1959 in film The year 1959 in film involved some significant events, with Ben-Hur winning a record 11 Academy Awards.-Events:* The Three Stooges make their 190th and last short film, Sappy Bull Fighters.... (32nd) 32nd Academy Awards The 32nd Academy Awards honored film achievements of 1959 on 4 April 1960.MGM's and director William Wyler's three and a half-hour long epic drama Ben-Hur won 11 Oscars in 1959, breaking the previous year's all-time record of nine... |
The Day Shall Dawn The Day Shall Dawn The Day Shall Dawn is a 1959 Pakistani drama film directed by A. J. Kardar. The film was selected as the Pakistani entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 32nd Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee... |
Jago Hua Savera | ||
| 1963 1963 in film The year 1963 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* June 12 - Cleopatra starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton premieres at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City.... (36th) 36th Academy Awards The 36th Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 1963, were held on April 13, 1964 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium in Santa Monica, California. They were hosted by Jack Lemmon.... |
The Veil Ghunghat (1962 film) Ghunghat is a 1962 Pakistani musical film directed by Khurshid Anwar. The film was selected as the Pakistani entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 36th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee. The film won four awards at the 1962 Nigar Awards.-Cast:* Santosh Kumar as Shahid*... |
Ghunghat (گھونگٹ) |
Pakistan's first Oscar submission, The Day Shall Dawn was very much a co-production between the two halves of what was then a geographically divided Pakistani state (now independent Pakistan and Bangladesh). The movie was filmed in Dhaka
Dhaka
Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh and the principal city of Dhaka Division. Dhaka is a megacity and one of the major cities of South Asia. Located on the banks of the Buriganga River, Dhaka, along with its metropolitan area, had a population of over 15 million in 2010, making it the largest city...
, East Pakistan
East Pakistan
East Pakistan was a provincial state of Pakistan established in 14 August 1947. The provincial state existed until its declaration of independence on 26 March 1971 as the independent nation of Bangladesh. Pakistan recognized the new nation on 16 December 1971. East Pakistan was created from Bengal...
(contemporary Bangladesh) by the East Pakistan Film Development Corporation by a director from Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
(in West Pakistan
West Pakistan
West Pakistan , common name West-Pakistan , in the period between its establishment on 22 November 1955 to disintegration on December 16, 1971. This period, during which, Pakistan was divided, ended when East-Pakistan was disintegrated and succeeded to become which is now what is known as Bangladesh...
) and scripted in the Urdu language, which is native to the West. The film, which won a major award at the Moscow International Film Festival
Moscow International Film Festival
Moscow International Film Festival , is the film festival first held in Moscow in 1959. From its inception to 1995 it was held every second year in July, alternating with the Karlovy Vary festival. The festival has been held annually since 1995....
, was about the daily lives of East Pakistani fishermen.
Pakistan's second and final Oscar submission, The Veil , is about the disappearance of a veiled young bride on the day she is scheduled to be married off to a rich young man.
See also
- List of Academy Award winners and nominees for Best Foreign Language Film
- List of Academy Award-winning foreign language films
- Cinema of BangladeshCinema of BangladeshThe Bangladeshi film industry has been based in Bangladesh's capital, Dhaka, since 1956. As of 2004, it produced approximately 100 movies a year, with an average movie budget of about 20,000,000 Bangladeshi taka...
- Cinema of PakistanCinema of PakistanThe cinema of Pakistan refers to Pakistan's film industry. Most of the feature films shot in Pakistan are in Urdu language but may also include films in English, Punjabi, Pashto, Balochi or Sindhi languages....