Argentina has submitted Pablo Trapero’s The Clan (original title El Clan) as its entry for Best Foreign Language Film in the Academy Awards race. The announcement was made on Monday by the Argentine Film Academy.
The film is based on the true story of a family of kidnappers in Argentina in the 1980s, recent enough for Argentinians to remember the news coverage for the high-profile criminal events. The family members of the Clan Puccio abducted people from an upscale Buenos Aires neighborhood, and after receiving high ransoms, would kill their victims.
The movie has done very well domestically, breaking box office records for best opening ever in Argentina. The film won the Silver Lion for best director at the Venice Film Festival and also was one of twelve films competing in the inaugural Platform section at the Toronto International Film Festival this year (Alan Zweig’s Canadian Hurt won).
Trapero has helmed two films previously selected as the Argentinian Oscar bid – Lion’s Den and Carancho. Argentina last scooped up the Best Foreign Film Oscar in 2010 with the mystery-thriller The Secret in Their Eyes, for which there is now a U.S. remake starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Nicole Kidman, and Julia Roberts, to be released in November this year. Argentina also snagged an Oscar nomination last year for its entry Wild Tales (another big hit at the Argentinian box office), but lost to Poland’s Ida.
The Clan is produced by Buenos Aires K&S Film and Pedro Almodovar‘s El Deseo with Twentieth Century Fox as the distributor.
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