Spain Picks 'Blancanieves' for Foreign Oscar Nomination Slot

LONDON – Pablo Berger's Blancanieves, a black-and-white homage to silent cinema, is Spain's entry for the foreign-language film Oscar.

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The film, a re-telling of the Snow White story set in Seville in the 1920s, unspooled in Toronto earlier this month and hit the screen In Competition during the San Sebastian Film Festival.

THR's review of the film said: "With frugal use of dialogue cards and expressive performances in which emotions are stamped in bold, the writer-director spins an eventful tale that is faithful to the original yet has its own quirky identity. This is especially so in the final section, where the heroine, nicknamed Blancanieves by her new companions, enjoys a rapid rise to fame after intervening during a violent episode in the bullfighting ring. But triumph segues quickly to tragedy in a haunting conclusion that borrows from Sleeping Beauty by way of Tod Browning’s Freaks."

It is produced by Arcadia Motion Pictures while Noodles Prod. and Arte France Cinema co-produced from France.

The movie is being repped by sales agent Dreamcatcher.

The Spanish Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members chose Blancanieves from a three-film shortlist, announced Sept. 12, which also included Fernando Trueba's The Artist and the Model and Alberto Rodriguez's Unit 7.