Animated, foreign-language, feature-length documentary. These are all separate categories for the Academy Awards, but they also together describe Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir, a film that has received tons of praise and Oscar buzz since premiering at Cannes last May. With such a rare combination and transcendence of genres, Waltz could possibly have been the first film to be nominated for Best Animated Feature, Best Documentary Feature and Best Foreign Language Film. Unfortunately, soon after being announced as Israel’s submission to the foreign category, Folman’s film fell out of contention for the documentary prize after its distributor, Sony Pictures Classics, had to choose between having a qualifying theatrical release and taking part in the New York Film Festival.

But even if Waltz had been deemed technically eligible for the doc category, would the nominating committee have given it much of a chance? According to the Academy’s Documentary Feature rules, the film “may employ partial re-enactment … animation … or other techniques, as long as the emphasis is on fact and not fiction.” Waltz could possibly fall under this guideline, yet the word “partial” is key. Does “mostly” constitute as ‘partial”? It will be interesting to see if another mostly animated documentary, Brett Morgen’s Chicago 10, is deemed ineligible or if it makes the committee’s shortlist of 15 semi-finalists.

Now, left with two categories to be considered for, Waltz will probably only garner one nomination. Here’s why Sony would be foolish not to concentrate on a push for the Animated Feature category:

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Wow. AMPAS released their shortlist of nine finalists for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nomination today, and it’s missing a LOT of familiar titles. Like Cannes winner and presumed front runner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. Like festival favorites Edge of Heaven and Persepolis. Like the great Silent Light, which Tartan has still not set a US release date for, and probably won’t now that their hopes for free publicity have been dashed.

Not to take anything away from the finalists (and though I haven’t seen any of them, I’ve certainly heard many good things about some of them, especially The Counterfeiters and Days of Darkness), but I’m sure we can expect to see much grousing about this from fans of the snubbed films, particularly 4 Months. But you have to hand the prognostication prize to Cinemascope, who predicted way back in early December that “the Romanian abortion movie” wouldn’t make the final five “because the style of the movie-making is all but indigestible to American viewers.” Of course, the same post predicted Persepolis as the race’s frontrunner. Win some, lose some, etc.

The films that did make the cut are listed after the jump.

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Persepolis

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Persepolis, directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud and based on Satrapi’s graphic novel of the same name, hits theaters on Christmas. The animated film is based on Satrapi’s experiences growing up during the Islamic Revolution in Iran, bumming around Europe, and of course coming to valuable realizations about nationality, gender, and family.

In many ways it’s a traditional coming-of-age tale, but with a few fresh twists. Persepolis maintains much of the episodic, meandering quality common to graphic novels, which works both for and against the film. The final product succeeds, mainly due to the way that the simple hand-drawn aesthetic illustrates deceptively simple childhood memories. The amusing misadventures of precocious young Marji play like a darkly self-aware Pinocchio. Comic moments bely the seriousness of the issues that surface in the film. Truly gut-wrenching scenes of her activist relatives being imprisoned and killed are buttressed by sequences that poke fun at the absurdity of fascism. In one scene, Marji is forced to buy cassette tapes of Iron Maiden and Michael Jackson from trench-coated street pushers.

But can it stop World War III? More thoughts after the jump:

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With the Toronto Film Festival beginning tomorrow, we’ve just about concluded our Telluride coverage. Here are some highlights. You’ll find a full guide to our Telluride reportage, minus Friday’s upcoming all-Telluride episode of FilmCouch, after the jump.

Kevin interviews Sean Penn about his Telluride directorial triumph, Into the Wild.

Karina has a detailed preview of Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood.

Paul talks to Werner Herzog about “life, risk and how his mom quit smoking.”

“In Superbad, Michael Cera fantasizes about a world in which ‘girls weren’t weirded out by our boners, but actually wanted to look at them.’ Juno takes place in that world.” Karina reviews the Festival’s biggest buzz-getter, and Paul interviews director Jason Reitman.

We love People on Sunday. Paul says the 1929 silent film “contains the most seductive first kiss I’ve ever seen on film. No joke.” Karina looks at the historical context.

“It’s true that I was in a rather fragile, sleep-deprived state at the time, but even now, the morning after, as it were, I still love this film.” Kevin’s talking about I’m Not There. He also talked to that film’s director, Todd Haynes.

“When I was 20 years old, I moved from Chicago to San Francisco, and I did it for George Kuchar.” Karina offers some thoughts on the experimental legend/Telluride honoree.

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Kevin talks with Iranian director Marjane Satrapi about her new film Persepolis, an animated feature which she co-directed with her friend Vincent Paronnaud. The film is based on the graphic novel that Satrapi wrote and illistrated.

Marjane Satrapi
Persepolis