Denmark Picks One of Three for Oscar Submission (TRAILER)

With the October 1 Oscar submission deadline looming, Denmark has finally made its choice.

Nordisk’s Venice debut “A War,” written and directed by Tobias Lindholm (who directed “A Hijacking” and wrote “The Hunt” and TV series “Borgen”), follows company commander Claus M. Pedersen (“Borgen” and “A Hijacking” star Pilou Asbæk), who is stationed in Afghanistan as his wife Maria (Tuva Novotny) tries to hold their three kids together back in Denmark. During one mission, in order to save his soldiers caught in heavy crossfire, Pedersen makes a grave decision.

To compete in the Oscar race in the foreign film category, a film that is not in English must screen in theaters (and not first on TV) between October 1 2014 and September 30 2015. (It’s possible for a movie like Turkish “Mustang” to be a French co-production that is not in French and be submitted by that country.)

In Denmark, writes David Bjerre, 26 feature films and 5 documentaries were eligible. The final three also included Josh Oppenheimer’s “The Act of Killing” sequel “The Look of Silence” and frequent Susanne Bier collaborator Anders Thomas Jensen’s “Men & Chicken,” which played the recent Toronto festival.