Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body and Soul is going to the Oscars

The Hungarian Oscar Selection Committee decided upon which film will represent Hungary at the next Academy Awards. Based on the Hungarian National Film Fund’s announcement, 24.hu reports that Ildikó Enyedi’s film, entitled On Body and Soul (Testről és Lélekről), was chosen.

The purpose of the Hungarian Oscar Selection Committee’s session (held on September 5, 2017) was to decide which film should represent Hungary at the upcoming Academy Awards in the ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ category. Their choice fell upon Ildikó Enyedi’s On Body and Soul, which won a Golden Bear at this year’s Berlinale.

According to the American Film Academy’s rules, each country can enter with a film in the ‘Best Foreign Language Film’ category, which premiered between the 1^st of October 2016 and the 30^th of September 2017 at the 90^th Oscars.

The members of the Hungarian Oscar Selection Committee were Ágnes Havas (the CEO of the Hungarian Film Fund), András Kálmán, (film distribution expert), András Bálint Kovács (university lecturer), Andrew Vajna (government commissioner), Réka Divinyi (screenwriter), Krisztina Goda (director) and Pál Sándor (director, producer).

Ildikó Enyedi returned with a feature film after 18 years, and it won the Golden Bear at the Berlinale in February. This was also its world premiere. The film won the International Federation of Film Critics (Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique) award, the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury (Prix du Jury Œcuménique) at the Cannes Festival, and the Berliner Morgenpost’s Reader Jury Prize. This was the first Hungarian film ever to won the grand prize at the Sydney Film Festival, where Ildikó was the first woman to win in the history of the festival. The US premiere will take place at the Toronto Film Festival.