Foreign Language Movies

OSCAR voters, perhaps with an eye on recent abuses by authoritarian nation-states, bestowed the statuette for foreign language film on "The Lives of Others," a disturbing saga of secrets and lies in the former communist East Germany.

News from the Academy Awards reverberated internationally Monday, sparking cheers and expressions of hope in countries that had a connection to the winners. German Chancellor Angela Merkel congratulated first-time filmmaker Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, whose "The Lives of Others" won for best foreign language film, praising in particular the movie's "authentic German plot." Ugandans welcomed Forest Whitaker's victory as best actor.

ONE of the jokes going around Hollywood last week was that foreign movie talent earned so much Oscar attention that CNN's Lou Dobbs wants to build a 20-foot-high fence around the Kodak Theatre to keep them out. From the best director and screenplay categories to score, cinematography and costume design, the Oscars were a giant billboard for the ascendancy of international film artists.

Disney's latest China strategy doesn't involve Mickey, Minnie or Goofy. It's all about an enchanted vegetable. The Walt Disney Co. China announced this week that it will release a Chinese-language movie, "The Magic Gourd," this summer -- its first co-production with the state-run China Film Group. The movie, based on a novel written by the late Chinese children's writer Zhang Tianyi, is about a boy who discovers a gourd -- a squash-like vegetable -- that grants him wishes.

France has chosen "Persepolis," a black-and-white animated film about a young girl growing up in Iran during the Islamic revolution in the late 1970s, as the nation's entry for best foreign language film at the Oscars. Based on Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel, the autobiographical tale shared the jury prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival and will close the New York Film Festival on Oct. 14. Sony Pictures Classics will release the film in the U.S. on Dec. 25. -- Sheigh Crabtree

Gazing from a breeze-swept second-floor terrace, Luciana Bezerra takes in the postcard-perfect imagery of this most photogenic of cities: the golden expanse of Ipanema beach, the dreamy islands bobbing in the Atlantic and the hill where the giant Christ the Redeemer statue keeps watch over wobbly humanity.

Just as the French have given Jerry Lewis more respect as a filmmaker than Hollywood, it was American audiences that turned French director Jean-Jacques Beineix's quirky caper flick "Diva" into a hit 25 years ago. "America saved my film," says the 61-year-old Beineix. "People [at home] said that this movie was just glossy and had no significance, no scenario, and it was all surface and no brain. When the film was released in France [in 1981], it was a total flop."

\o7A\f7CCORDING to Metacritic.com, a website that tracks critical reaction to current films, one of the five best-reviewed movies of 2005 -- right up there with "Capote" and "Brokeback Mountain" -- is "Cache," a provocative drama by the respected Austrian filmmaker Michael Haneke. The film earned raves from Time, Newsweek, Roger Ebert, USA Today, our paper and Entertainment Weekly, which called it a "fabulously unsettling, doesn't-leave-your-head thriller."

South Africa, with its second nomination in as many years, won its first Academy Award for best foreign language film with "Tsotsi." Writer-director Gavin Hood adapted Athol Fugard's novel about a young gangster in the poverty-stricken townships of Johannesburg, updating it from the 1960s to present day.