Two Balkan Films, One Actress, Join Running for Oscars

The US Motion Picture Academy on Monday confirmed its nomination list for the 93rd Oscars Awards, which includes two movies from southeastern European countries competing in the category of Best International Feature Film. A Bulgarian actress has also been nominated for the Best Supporting Actress award.

Directed by the Romanian-German filmmaker Alexander Nanau, Collective retells how a journalistic investigation unearthed the corrupt practices in Romania's state healthcare system in the wake of the devastasting fire at the 2015 Colectiv nightclub in Bucharest that caused the deaths of 65 people and made the shortcomings of Romanian hospitals evident. Collective has also made it into the shortlist of the Best Feature Documentary category.

Collective will be competing for Best International Feature Film prize alongside another Balkan movie, Quo Vadis Aida?, by Bosnian filmmaker Jasmila Zbanic.

The film is a dramatic recreation of the story of a young Bosnian woman working as a translator for the UN peacekeeping mission when the Bosniak enclave of Srebrenica was overrrun by Bosnian Serb forces in July 1995, and the town's male inhabitants hunted down and slaughtered.

Meanwhile, Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova has been nominated in the Best Actress in a Supporting Role category for her role alongside Sacha Baron Cohen in the satirical mockumentary Borat Subsequent Moviefilm. Bakalova, who was already nominated by this year's Golden Globe awards, is the first Bulgarian actress to be nominated for an Oscar.

The 93rd Academy Awards, or Oscars, will be presented at a ceremony in Hollywood, Los Angeles, on 25 April, two months behind schedule due to the appearance last year of the COVID-19 pandemic.