The boycott appears straightforward: Mohammad Hosseini, Iran's culture minister, on Tuesday confirmed that his country would not submit a film for consideration at next year's Oscars in protest of “Innocence of Muslims,†the anti-Islam YouTube video that has sparked deadly riots. He specifically cited the “failure†of Oscar organizers to take an official position on the incendiary “film.â€
But Iran's move left Hollywood scratching its head. Iran, which won the Academy Award for best foreign language film earlier this year, was seriously going to boycott moviedom's biggest prize because the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hadn't denounced a crude YouTube video made by a former gas s tation owner? (The academy had no comment.)
The deadline for submissions is Oct. 1, and the country had planned to submit Reza Mirkarimi's “A Cube of Sugar,†a dramatic comedy about a wedding that turns into a funeral; Variety called the picture “slim but vibrant†in its review.
The movie site HitFix.com wondered this: If a viral video is causing outrage by depicting one's culture in a negative light, what sense does it make to deny Western exposure to more positive cultural expressions of your country? “Sitting out this particular Oscar race,†Hitfix concluded in an echo of what other movie experts were saying on Tuesday, “is a gesture so minor as to affect only the filmmaker who would otherwise compete.â€
Iran's winning submission at the last Oscars, “A Separation,†about a collapsing marriage, was also dragged into politics, to the consternation of its director, Asghar Farhadi. After it won - beating out an Israeli submission and three others - Javad Shamaghdari, the top official at Iran's cinema agency, described it as “the beginning of the collapse†of Israeli influence in America.
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