A few days ago the Golden Globes nominations were announced and the film by Lee Isaac Chung -Minari- was nominated for Best Foreign Language Film. A few days earlier there was a debate about in which category it should be included in case it was nominated for these awards and the Oscars.
Previous films such as Parasite and The Farewell had marked the growing trend of showing more inclusive and diverse stories in cinema, and the precedent of having won -in the first case- the Oscar for Best Picture.
However, the Golden Globes announced that they would not include Minari in the Best Picture category, but, as previously mentioned, in Best Foreign Language Film. Why? Because it has a lot of dialogue in Korean. This caused a lot of controversy within the film industry as many believed the film deserved to be in a more important category. What are the reasons of those who adopt this position? The feature film is made in the United States, directed by an American, and produced by an American company so they believe the film was included in that category because of a "technicality".
Even filmmaker Lulu Wang expressed on her official Twitter account:
"I have not seen a more American film than Minari this year. It's a story about an immigrant family, in America, pursuing the American dream. We really need to change these antiquated rules that characterizes American as only English-speaking.”
According to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, for a film to be considered Best Picture it must have at least 50% of English dialogue. Parasites was nominated for the same category as Minari at the Golden Globes, but at the Academy Awards it fared better, so we hope it bodes well for the beloved American-Korean film! Surely March 15 - the day the Oscar nominations are announced - will end up clearing up this debate.
Stay tuned!
