Britain’s nominee as Best Foreign Language Film for the Oscars features an all-Filipino cast and a story that traces the sacrifices and hopes of an impoverished family from the countryside that tries its luck in the dark and squalid ghettos of the Philippine capital Manila.
Metro Manila, written and directed by Briton Sean Ellis, is one of three foreign language films nominated in the best foreign language category for next year’s Oscars which delves into the lives of Filipinos.
The Philippines’ nominee Transit focuses on the struggles of migrant Filipino workers in Israel, while Singapore’s entry Ilo Ilo is about a Filipino nanny who works for a Singaporean family.
The US film academy will select the finalists in January ahead of the Oscar ceremony on March 2.
“I thought it was a very beautiful and poetic story about family and about sacrifice and about hope,” Ellis said of his movie, which won an audience award at the recent Sundance Film Festival. The movie premiered in Manila last week and opens in Philippine cinemas on Wednesday.
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