Swiss film makes foreign film Oscar shortlist

Director Claude Barras hails from Sierre, canton Valais, in southwestern Switzerland. Keystone

The animated film “Ma vie de courgette” (My life as a courgette) by Valais director Claude Barras has made the Oscar shortlist for the Foreign Language Film category.

Swiss Films, the Swiss film promotion board, said on Friday that Switzerland’s official entry to the 89th Academy Awards was also in the running for an Academy Award nomination in the category of Animated Feature Film.

Five nominations from the nine films on the shortlist will be selected. A total of 85 countries submitted a film in the Foreign Language Film category and 27 features were submitted for Best Animated Feature Film. “This is the first time that a Swiss animation film is in the running for an Oscar,” a Swiss Films statement said.

The Oscar nominations will be announced on January 24, 2017.

The news comes shortly after it was announced that the film was also to be considered for a Golden Globe. The winners of this prestigious American film and television awards will be announced in a Hollywood ceremony on January 8.

“Courgette”, which Swiss Films has calledExternal link the nation’s “most successful animation film of all time and most successful cinema export”, has been nominated in the Best Animated Film of the Year category along with “Kubo and the Two Strings”, “Moana”, “Sing” and “Zootopia”.

The French-language stop-motion animation follows the challenges and friendships encountered by a little boy with an unusual nickname – Courgette – who is sent to an orphanage after losing his parents.

The 66-minute film has already won 25 awards, including the European Film Award for Best Animation. 

The Golden Globes are the most important film ceremony in the US after the Oscars and are given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Awards are also given for television work. Animated films have been eligible for awards in their own category since 2007.