Nine features will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 89th Academy Awards®. Eighty-five films had originally been considered in the category.
The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:
Australia, “Tanna,” Bentley Dean, Martin Butler, directors;
Canada, “It’s Only the End of the World,” Xavier Dolan, director;
Denmark, “Land of Mine,” Martin Zandvliet, director;
Germany, “Toni Erdmann,” Maren Ade, director;
Iran, “The Salesman,” Asghar Farhadi, director;
Norway, “The King’s Choice,” Erik Poppe, director;
Russia, “Paradise,” Andrei Konchalovsky, director;
Sweden, “A Man Called Ove,” Hannes Holm, director;
Switzerland, “My Life as a Zucchini,” Claude Barras, director.
Foreign Language Film nominations for 2016 are determined in two phases.
The Phase I committee, consisting of several hundred Los Angeles-based Academy members, screened the original submissions in the category between mid-October and December 12. The group’s top six choices, augmented by three additional selections voted by the Academy’s Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee, constitute the shortlist.
The shortlist will be winnowed down to the category’s five nominees by specially invited committees in New York, Los Angeles and London. They will spend Friday, January 13, through Sunday, January 15, viewing three films each day and then casting their ballots.
The competitive Foreign Language Film category was introduced in 1956 for the 29th Academy Awards. In celebration of its 60th anniversary, the Academy has created a complete playlist of acceptance speeches and a poster gallery of all the Foreign Language Film Oscar® winners.
Nominations for the 89th Oscars® will be announced on Tuesday, January 24, 2017.
The 89th Oscars will be held on Sunday, February 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre® at Hollywood & Highland Center® in Hollywood, and will be televised live on the ABC Television Network at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. The Oscars also will be televised live in more than 225 countries and territories worldwide.
South Korea fines Meta $15 million for illegally collecting information on Facebook users
South Korea's privacy watchdog on Tuesday fined social media company Meta 21.6 billion won ($15 million) for illegally collecting sensitive personal information from Facebook users, including data about their political views and sexual orientation, and sharing it with thousands of advertisers.
It was the latest in a series of penalties against Meta by South Korean authorities in recent years as they increase their scrutiny of how the company, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, handles private information.
Following a four-year investigation, South Korea's Personal Information Protection Commission concluded that Meta unlawfully collected sensitive information about around 980,000 Facebook users, including their religion, political views and whether they were in same-sex unions, from July 2018 to March 2022.
It said the company shared the data with around 4,000 advertisers.
South Korea's privacy law provides strict protection for information related to personal beliefs, political views and sexual behavior, and bars companies from processing or using such data without the specific consent of the person involved.
The commission said Meta amassed sensitive information by analyzing the pages the Facebook users liked or the advertisements they clicked on.
The company categorized ads to identify users interested in themes such as specific religions, same-sex and transgender issues, and issues related to North Korean escapees, said Lee Eun Jung, a director at the commission who led the investigation on Meta.
"While Meta collected this sensitive information and used it for individualized services, they made only vague mentions of this use in their data policy and did not obtain specific consent," Lee said.
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