Germany Submits "Ribbon" To Academy

A scene from Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon." Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Variety is reporting that Germany has officially selected Michael Haneke's Palme d'Or winning "The White Ribbon" for entry into the Academy Awards' foreign-language film category. This is Haneke's fifth time in the running for an Oscar nod, though never has he received a nomination.

"Despair haunts every moment of Michael Haneke's 'The White Ribbon,'" indieWIRE's Eric Kohn wrote in Cannes. "The director's dour, Bergmanesque black-and-white portrait of enigmas and familial discord in a Protestant German village at the beginning of the twentieth century peddles in the art of downbeat expressionism. Pairing visual mastery with a quietly immersive story, 'The White Ribbon' plays like a morbid version of 'Our Town,' patiently revealing the inward discord beneath the surface of a settled community. It's a frightening depiction of mortality."

Sony Pictures Classics has picked up U.S. rights and will release the film in late December. No foreign Palme d’Or winner has failed to be entered in the category since Japan’s “The Eel" in 1997. The closing date for submissions to the foreign language category is October 1st.