Asia's Representative Film At The 2021 Oscars That Is Anti-Mainstream

JAKARTA - The 93rd Academy Awards or Oscar will be held on April 25, 2021. Currently, various countries have started sending representatives to compete in the biggest film award. Later, these films will compete for the Best International Feature Film category.

Several countries in Asia have also announced their representatives. Some of them are Bhutan with Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom, Taiwan with A Sun, and Thailand with Happy Old Year.

From Indonesia, the film Perempuan Tanah Jahanam or Impetigore is the country's representative for the 2021 Oscar. Director Joko Anwar made this announcement via his personal Twitter account. Impetigore tells of a woman who wants to try to claim the inherited house of her parents, without knowing the dangers that lurk behind it.

Malaysia also chose the horror genre film, Roh as their representative. The film Roh tells the story of two children who bring a girl who they find behind a garden behind a house. The girls predict all members of their family will die. For the first time, the two countries chose horror films as representatives after previously selecting political or historical films.

In retrospect, Indonesia began sending representatives since 1987 with films with historical themes, such as Tjoet Nja 'Dhien in 1989 and Soekarno in 2014. However, none of them passed the selection stage.

Meanwhile, Thailand often sends romantic films including Happy Old Year to this prestigious event. Happy Old Year tells the story of a woman who wants to forget her ex but starts to get carried away to old memories after finding a box.

Although they have never been nominated with a representative, Thailand is very confident in the quality of drama films from their country. Meanwhile, other countries, such as Bhutan, India, Japan, the Philippines, Uzbekistan and South Korea, chose films with political themes and approaches to social life that easily attracted the attention of the jury.

The success of South Korean Parasite at the 92nd Oscars is key in the film industry. Social stories that were delivered in a dark comedy made Parasite win four awards at the 2020 Academy Awards, namely Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screeplay, and Best International Feature Film.

Parasite's victory is considered important for the change in the Asian film industry amid the chaos of #OscarsSoWhite reverberating on social media.

The hashtag was busy on the internet after the announcement of the nominations was released. According to the public, the Oscar was racist by choosing a nominee dominated by white people. Whereas every year, there are always black actors who show good acting.

The film Parasite is considered to be the Oscar's effort to create diversity in the list of winners amid the issue of racism and that diversity can continue for other Asian films.

Nobody can predict the victory of Parasite or any other film in the Oscar awards. More than 8,400 voters joined The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). These members consist of film activists, namely directors, make-up artists, music engineers, producers, cinematographers, and anyone who works in the film industry and has won an Oscar nomination.

Quoting Variety, a film can win if it gets more than 50 percent of votes but this must rarely happen because each member has their own preferences. Then there is a rule where if film A gets the most votes, namely 30 percent and becomes number one - it can be said that this film is a favorite.

But if film B gets 20 percent of the votes but is more popular than film A, film B has the potential to win. Meanwhile, a film cannot win based on the total voting score but also through the members' discussion if the film deserves to be crowned the winner.

For example, Mustang, a drama film from France, was nominated for Best International Feature Film at the 2015 Oscar. In fact, the other four films that were nominated with Mustang had world war as the premise of the story.

In the end, even if a country represents a film with any theme, the final decision still depends on the positive response of AMPAS members. But on the other hand, both Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand prove that these three countries are trying to present something different in order to compete in the international arena.