Hello sweet bloggers,
The Oscars, I'm sure you know them but if you don't, I'll explain it for you. The Oscar or the Academy Award is the most important award in the film industry. When they are awarded, everyone in Hollywood is there. In front of the building are a great red carpet and a lot of paparazzi. That evening is the most exclusive of the year for all movie stars. When you win an Oscar you’ll receive a little gold statue which is called the Academy Award of Merit.
But this year there’s something special. A movie from Belgium was nominated for the Oscar of best foreign movie. This was and is still a great opportunity for the director of Sint-Truiden, Michael Roskam. He and the main character, Matthias Schoenaerts, had been promoting ‘Rundskop’ in Hollywood for a few weeks before the Oscars were awarded.
‘Rundskop’ or ‘Bullhead’ is a movie of a farmer, Jacky Vanmarsenille (Matthias Schoenaerts), who uses illegal hormones for his animals and for himself. He uses it because he had an accident when he was a child. When he meets his old friend again, all the memories of the accident return. He decides to visit the offender and if you want to know what happens next, you have to watch the movie yourself!
‘Rundskop’ was in Belgium and many other countries a great success. Even Steven Spielberg has watched the movie in his living room! The movie is also popular in Limburg because of its language. The characters speak a dialect of Sint-Truiden and the real family Vanmarsenille is also known in the region.
Another movie which was nominated for an Oscar was ‘A Separation’. It’s a movie made in Iran and it was the great favorite. It’s about a married couple who’re faced with a difficult decision - to improve the life of their child by moving to another country or to stay in Iran and look after a deteriorating parent who has Alzheimer's disease. This movie expresses the criticism on the political situation in Iran and that’s why this was the favorite. Unfortunately ‘A Separation’ has won the Oscar for best foreign movie and ‘Rundskop’ didn’t. I’ve seen the reactions of the actors and the director and their opinions are similar, I guess. They said to the journalists after the show they aren’t disappointed at all and during the show they applauded loudly for the directors of the winning movie. Roskam said ‘A Separation’ was the deserved winner.
One of the plusses of the Oscar nomination of ‘Rundskop’ is: Matthias is discovered in Hollywood by a great agency. So they actually won something!
