The Hollywood representatives, free and pure [laughter], have already decided who are the deserving of the Oscars that will be distributed on Sunday. But if the Best Film and Best Non-English Speaking Film Awards are for favorites, it will be a little curious.

The favorite for the Best Non-English Speaking Film is A separation, by Jodaeiye Nader and Simin, which is presented as the audience favorite. It is surprising the amount of depths and emotions that simple and seemingly common history can harbor: a minor theft, an involuntary push, the separation of a couple in a negligible beginning… will become a heavy burden that will collapse on a road without return, reflection of a multi-corner reality. This film by director Asghar Farhadi is Iranian and is based on Woody Allen's homonymous novel. For showing solidarity with the Iranian directors rejected by the Government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, including the imprisoned Jafar Panahi or the exiled Bahman Ghobadi, Farhadi was forced to stop shooting the film. However, after asking for forgiveness, and especially since it has earned international awards, the film has great support from Tehran. Farhadi himself responds with great diplomacy to the most thorny questions of journalists, measuring his words so as not to hurt either of them. The point is, will the Oscar get a job that Ahmadinejad supports? To what extent can the conflict between the United States and Iran affect? Will impatience jump to seventh art? Israel, another of the protagonists of this ménage à trois of the political interests of the Middle East, is also nominated for the same prize, with Hearat Shulayim (Footnote).

To win the Best Film Award, the French production The Artist, which has already won numerous awards in its successful career since its premiere, has great possibilities. In black and white, mute and away from the industry’s ambitious budgets, giving an Oscar would be tantamount to launching itself: on the one hand, because it goes against the Hollywood model that wagers on spectacularity, special effects and three dimensions. Director Michel Hazanavicius has shown that fresh and ingenious stories narrated in an original way have an excellent welcome between criticism and the public. On the other hand, because it is transversal but clear the criticism made by The Artists to the depths of the industry, denouncing the ability of cinema to put on the top the products created by him and throw them out there into the mud.

Either way, they can win. The industry masterfully knows how to devour, penetrate and absorb the one out of mainstream. Or, from a more positive point of view, the Oscar is a cultural event [laughter] and we know that culture does not depend on political interests, the whims of the industry, economic factors and marketing operations [laughter].