Korean-Australian director Park Se-jong's animated short "Birthday Boy", which deals with Korea, was nominated for a 2005 Academy Award Tuesday night. It was the first time in the 77-year-history of the Academy Awards that a film made by a Korean has been nominated for an award. Meanwhile, the runaway success "Taegukgi: Brotherhood of War", picked as the Korean submission to the Academy after some controversy, failed to earn a nomination for best foreign-language film.
In its list of nominees announced Tuesday, the U.S. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences selected "Birthday Boy" as one of five nominees in the best animated short film category, along with "Gopher Broke", "Lorenzo", "Guard Dog" and "Ryan".
"Birthday Boy", a 10 minute movie that focuses on a child suddenly orphaned in the middle of the Korean War, has been well received for its quiet depiction of the pain of war felt by Koreans through the eyes of a child playing war games among the ruins of his village. Park, who emigrated to Australia six years ago and has a two-year-old son with his Australian wife, won an award at the 2004 Puchen International Student Animation Festival (PISAF 2004) last November as well.
Meanwhile, the war film "Taegukgi" lost out to "The Sea Inside" by Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar, Sweden's "As It Is in Heaven", France's "The Chorus", Germany's "Downfall" and the South African contribution "Yesterday".
Martin Scorsese's film "The Aviator" received the most nominations this year with 11, including ones for best picture, best director and best leading actor (Leonardo DiCaprio).
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