In response to industry pressure as well as the film biz’s growing internationalism, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association is changing its rules. The Hollywood Reporter tells us that foreign films will be in the running for the two best picture categories. But the rules won’t go into place until 2009. So Lust, Caution, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and The Kite Runner won’t win the biggies.
As of the 2009 Globes, movies for which the "country of origin is the United States" will qualify for best picture, drama, and best picture, comedy or musical, even if the majority of a film’s dialogue isn’t in English. Those pics won’t, in turn, be eligible for foreign-language film.
There will be no hard-and-fast criteria for what constitutes "country of origin," the HFPA said; each movie will be judged on its own merit.
