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Poppy Hill, Mystical Laws Submitted for Oscar Nominations

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Friday that 21 films have been submitted for possible Oscar nominations in the Best Animated Feature Film category of the 85th Academy Awards. Goro Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's From Up On Poppy Hill and Isamu Imakake's The Mystical Laws are among the submitted films:

• Adventures in Zambezia
• Brave
• Delhi Safari
• Dr. Seuss' The Lorax
• Frankenweenie
• From Up On Poppy Hill
• Hey Krishna
• Hotel Transylvania
• Ice Age Continental Drift
• A Liar's Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python's Graham Chapman
• Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted
• The Mystical Laws
• The Painting
• ParaNorman
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits
• The Rabbi's Cat
• Rise of the Guardians
• Secret of the Wings
• Walter & Tandoori's Christmas
• Wreck-It Ralph
• Zarafa

The academy will announce its official slate of nominees on January 10. The academy allows up to five nominations in this category if 16 or more films are submitted and accepted; if only 13 to 15 films are accepted, the academy will allow only a maximum of four nominations; if only eight to 12 films are accepted, the academy will allow only a maximum of two to three nominations.

Some of the submitted films, including From Up On Poppy Hill, still need to run in Los Angeles County for at least one week this year to qualify for acceptance in the category. The distributor GKIDS aims to give From Up On Poppy Hill a qualifying run in the "November time frame." All of the films still need to be examined by the academy's Animated Feature Film Award Screening Committee to determine if they meet other qualifications.

No anime was submitted for consideration for the 84th Academy Awards last year. (Gore Verbinski's Rango eventually won from a field of five nominees.) Mamoru Hosoda and MADHOUSE's Summer Wars anime film was submitted for the 83rd Academy Awards, but was not nominated.

Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli's Ponyo also qualified for a nomination in the 82nd Academy Awards, but did not receive one. Similarly, Mamoru Oshii and Production I.G's The Sky Crawlers and Masahiro Andō and BONES' Sword of the Stranger were among the 14 films submitted for the same category for the 81st Academy Awards; both were eventually accepted in the category but were not nominated.

The first time that five animated features were nominated in the category was in 2002, when Miyazaki's Spirited Away was submitted among 17 candidates. Spirited Away eventually became the only Japanese animated feature to win an Oscar. Kunio Katō's "La Maison en Petits Cubes" won in the Best Animated Short Film category at the 81st Annual Academy Awards in 2009.

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Image © 2011 Chizuru Takahashi, Tetsurō Sayama, GNDHDDT