You're reading: Ukraine selects its bid for Oscars in foreign-language category

Ukraine’s Oscars Committee has announced the country’s bid for Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards that will take place in February.

The committee of 16 moviemakers picked “Ukrainian
Sheriffs,” a documentary directed by 34-year-old Roman Bondarchuk.

“Ukrainian Sheriffs” depicts the daily
routine of two local men who were appointed sheriffs in Stara Zburjivka, a
village of 1,500 people in Kherson Oblast in the south of Ukraine.

The village is too small to have a police
station and located in the middle of the woodland, so the law enforcement can’t
get there on time when the crimes occur. Therefore, the village chose two
volunteers, who effectively act as police officers.

In the movie, the two sheriffs solve small
crimes
that include a thievery of two ducks,
prevent family violence and try to keep the village safe patrolling it in a
bright yellow Lada car with a Ukrainian flag attached to its roof.

Read the Kyiv Post’s review of “Ukrainian
Sheriffs”
here
.

“Ukrainian
sheriffs” competed with two other films to represent Ukraine at the Academy
Awards: “The Nest of the Turtledove” by Taras Tkachenko about Ukrainian women
who moved to Italy to earn money for their families, and a historical love
drama “Song of Songs” by Eva Neymann about two childhood friends who realise
they love each other while one of them is getting married.

“Ukrainian Sheriffs” was first screened at the
International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam in 2015, where it received
a Special Jury Award. It also won a Grand Prix at Polish documentary festival
Docs Against Gravity in 2016.

The film was screened at more than 30
international festivals, according to Ukrainian Oscars Committee, and in seven
Ukrainian cities during the DocuDays annual festival.

Now, the
movie will be evaluated by the U.S.-based Oscars Committee and fight for a spot
on the short list.

Then, the committee will choose final five films that get to
be nominated in the Best Foreign Language Film category. The 89th
Academy Awards will be held in Los Angeles on Feb. 26.

Last year,
Ukraine failed to nominate a film for the Oscars, because the Ukrainian Oscars
Committee wasn’t formed on time. The committee was reformed in 2014, after it received
criticism for not nominating “The Tribe,” an acclaimed film by Myroslav
Slaboshpytsky for the Oscars. “The Tribe,” a criminal drama about the orphanage
for deaf children, received numerous awards at international festivals and made
it to the Hollywood Reporter’s list of the top movies of 2014.