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Oscar nominations: Documentary, foreign films are all over the map

It’s a small, small world that’s depicted in several Oscar nominees for best foreign and best documentary films — and getting even smaller and more inter-connected.

The nominees in those two categories, from countries as disparate as Belgium and Iran, as well as Middle America, reflect what some say is an unusually international spirit to this year’s nominees in many categories.

“It’s sort of a more global feeling here,” said Wim Wenders, the German director, L.A. habitué and nominee for his pioneering 3-D documentary “Pina,” about the late avant-garde choreographer Pina Bausch, speaking by phone from Berlin. “I think it’s a very positive sign for the Oscars to reach out and embrace other film cultures more.”

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The Cheat Sheet: Oscar nominations

Possibly no movie embodies that development better than the foreign film contender “A Separation,” a drama in which marital strife and societal tensions engulf a Tehran couple. The movie, by writer-director Asghar Farhadi, also was nominated for original screenplay, a rare feat for a foreign-language film.

“Although there are lots of languages spoken around the world, it seems that art and cinema is the common language,” Farhadi said, speaking by phone from Paris through an interpreter.

“A Separation,” which has already won a Golden Globe, is widely regarded as the favorite in a field that also includes Polish director Agnieszka Holland’s Holocaust drama “In Darkness”; Michaël R. Roskam’s “Bullhead,” a revenge tale centered on Belgium’s bovine-hormone mafia; Joseph Cedar’s “Footnote,” from Israel, about father-and-son Talmudic scholars at a Jerusalem university; and “Monsieur Lazhar,” a Canadian film by Philippe Falardeau about an Algerian immigrant sent to replace an elementary school teacher who committed suicide.

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Like Wenders, Falardeau discerns a global flavor across many of this year’s categories, such as lead actor (which includes a Frenchman and a Mexican). “Maybe a film critic would say it’s a sign of slight decline of new films” out of Hollywood, and a search for new international perspectives, he said.

Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, which is distributing “A Separation,” “In Darkness” and “Footnote,” said this year’s foreign film nominees mark a shift away from traditional European movie powerhouses such as France and Italy toward emerging global hot spots.

“There’s no question these are countries that are very much in the news and these are places where the filmmakers have a lot to say,” Barker said.

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In addition to “Pina,” the documentary nominees are Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s “Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory,” about the controversial murder conviction and later freeing of the so-called West Memphis 3; “Hell and Back Again,” by Danfung Dennis and Mike Lerner, about the lethal dangers that U.S. troops face in Afghanistan and upon returning home; “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front,” about a transnational radical environmental group, by Marshall Curry and Sam Cullman; and “Undefeated,” an uplifting film about an under-resourced urban high school football team, by T.J. Martin, Daniel Lindsay and Richard Middlemas.

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