The Colombian submission is decided annually by the Consejo Nacional de Cinematografía, a branch of the Colombian
Ministry of Culture.[4] As of 2021[update], Colombia has entered the competition 30 times, and has been nominated once for an Academy Award.
Submissions
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has invited the film industries of various countries to submit their best film for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film since 1956. The Foreign Language Film Award Committee oversees the process and reviews all the submitted films. Following this, they vote via
secret ballot to determine the five nominees for the award.[3] Below is a list of the films that have been submitted by Colombia for review by the Academy for the award by year and the respective Academy Awards ceremony.
In 2004, Colombia announced that it had selected
Maria, Full of Grace as its Oscar submission, and the film was touted as an early front-runner to win the award. However, the film was disqualified by
AMPAS which said that the film, a drama which had won
Best Colombian Feature at the
Cartagena Film Festival, featuring mostly Colombian characters and starring Colombian actress
Catalina Sandino Moreno in the title role, did not qualify as a majority Colombian production because it was written and directed by an American,
Joshua Marston. After an unsuccessful appeal, Colombia was allowed to send El Rey as a replacement.[5] Although it was disqualified, however, Catalina Sandino Moreno was eventually nominated for the
Academy Award for Best Actress and holds the title as the only Colombian nominated to an acting category.
Ciro Guerra is currently the director with most submissions with four films, and his 2015 film
Embrace of the Serpent is the only Colombian film to be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. Directors
Sergio Cabrera,
Carlos Moreno and
Jorge Alí Triana have each had their films selected two times, but none have been nominated. Triana's son
Rodrigo had one of his films selected in 2006. The actor with the most appearances in the Colombian submissions is renowned Colombian actress
Vicky Hernández who co-starred in five of the national nominees.[citation needed] All Colombian submissions were filmed primarily in
Spanish, with the exception being Birds of Passage (2018) that was filmed primarily in
Wayuu language.
Since 2014, Colombia has announced a list of finalists or eligible films that varied in number over the years (from 3 to 16 films) before announcing their official Oscar nominee, except in the year 2022 where an official list was not announced. The following films have been shortlisted by the
Colombian Academy of Cinematography Arts and Sciences:
^The category was previously named the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but this was changed to the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film in April 2019, after the Academy deemed the word "Foreign" to be outdated.[1][2]