Fateless (Sorstalanság) for the Oscar

1 September the Oscar Nomination Board selected the feature of Lajos Koltai, Fateless (Sorstalanság) for representing Hungary at the Academy Awards as the official nominee for the “Best Foreign Language Film”.

Films opening between 1 October 2004 and 30 September 2005 can be nominated for the Academy Awards according to the regulations of the Oscar Nomination Board.

Each country can nominate one feature film per year. By the end of January five of these nominees are selected by the representatives of the Los Angeles Film Academy to run for the Oscar in the category of “Best Foreign Language Film” at the most famous competition of the American film industry.

The official list of nominees is being proclaimed on 31 January 2006, and the 78th Annual Academy Awards Ceremony will be held on 5 March 2006 in Kodak Theatre, Hollywood.

The movie of Lajos Koltai is based on the novel with the same title by Imre Kertész, who won the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature. The international opening of the motion picture Fateless (Sorstalanság) took place at the Berlinale and was followed by several festival invitations and awards. After winning the Grand Prize of the Lagow Film Festival the picture won the award for best cinematography at the Copenhagen Film Festival, where Gyula Pados got the Golden Swan. The International Federation of Film Critics, FIPRESCI named Fateless (Sorstalanság) among the ten best films of the year. The list of ten is forwarded by the International Federation of Film Critics as a recommendation to the European Film Academy in Berlin responsible for the European awards.

Fateless (Sorstalanság) will be shown at the Toronto, Vancouver, Pusan, Haifa and Kiev Film Festivals. Koltai’s film opens in the American movie theaters this fall.