Russia’s Oscar selection committee suspends operations

By Elena Teslova

MOSCOW (AA) - Russia's Oscar committee, which annually nominates domestic motion pictures for the award in the Best International Feature Film category, has suspended its operations, one of its members said on Friday.

"I was on the Oscar nomination committee when it was working. Now its ranks have greatly thinned, and its activities have stopped," film producer Fyodor Popov told Russia's state news agency TASS.

Popov said nomination for the Academy Awards "would look extremely inappropriate" in conditions when Russia is heavily sanctioned, Russian culture, sports and other humanitarian domains are persecuted and banned.

TASS, citing two other sources, said this year Russia will not nominate any films for the awards.

In September 2022, the Russian National Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences said "the presidium decided not to nominate a domestic film for the Oscar Award in 2022."

Pavel Chukhray, chairman of the Russian Oscar committee, had disagreed with the decision and left the committee, and many other members followed his lead.

Formally, however, the committee still exists.