The Pakistani Academy Selection Committee invites Pakistani filmmakers to submit their films for Oscar consideration in the 'Foreign Language Film Award’ category for the 89^th Academy Awardsby 22^ndAugust 2016, 5:00 PM [PST].

Indeed, this will mark the fourth consecutive submission by the Pakistani Academy Selection Committee having previously submitted “ZindaBhaag” in 2013, “Dukhtar” in 2014 and “MOOR” in 2015 to represent the best of Pakistani cinema for award consideration in the 'Foreign Language Film’ category.

The committee is chaired by two-time Academy Award and Emmy winning documentary filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy and includes IramParveen Bilal as the charge d’affaires, ZebaBakhtiar, Adnan Siddiqui, Hasan Zaidi, SheemaKermani, SarmadKhoosat, Jamshed Mahmood Raza, Jamil Dehlavi and Adnan Sarwar.

The committee will choose one film as Pakistan’s official submission for the, 'Foreign Language Film Award.’ A foreign language film is defined as a feature-length motion picture produced outside the United States of America with a predominantly non-English dialogue track.

The criteria for eligibility is as follows:

1. The motion picture must be first released in the country submitting it no earlier than October 1, 2015, and no later than September 30, 2016, and be first publicly exhibited for at least seven consecutive days in a commercial motion picture theater for the profit of the producer and exhibitor. Submissions must be in 35mm or 70mm film, or in a 24- or 48-frame progressive scan Digital Cinema format with a minimum projector resolution of 2048 by 1080 pixels, source image format conforming to ST 428- 1:2006 D-Cinema Distribution Master – Image Characteristics; image compression (if used) conforming to ISO/IEC 15444-1 (JPEG 2000); and image and sound file formats suitable for exhibition in commercial Digital Cinema sites.

The audio in a Digital Cinema Package (DCP) is typically 5.1 or 7.1 channels of discrete audio. The minimum for a non-mono configuration of the audio shall be three channels as Left, Center, Right (a Left/Right configuration is not acceptable in a theatrical environment).

The audio data shall be formatted in conformance with ST 428-2:2006 D-Cinema Distribution Master - Audio Characteristics and ST 428-3:2006 D-Cinema Distribution Master – Audio Channel Mapping and Channel Labeling.

2. The picture must be advertised and exploited during its theatrical release in a manner considered normal and customary to theatrical feature distribution practices. The picture need not have been released in the United States.

3. Films that, in any version, receive a nontheatrical public exhibition or distribution before their first qualifying theatrical release will not be eligible for Academy Awards consideration.

Nontheatrical public exhibition or distribution includes but is not limited to:

• Broadcast and cable television
• PPV/VOD
• DVD distribution
• Internet transmission

4. The recording of the original dialogue track as well as the completed picture must be predominantly in a language or languages other than English. Accurate, legible English-language subtitles are required.

5. The submitting country must certify that creative control of the motion picture was largely in the hands of citizens or residents of that country.

6. The Foreign Language Film Award Executive Committee shall resolve all questions of eligibility and rules.

The Pakistani Academy Selection Committee will announce its nomination for award consideration on 16^thSeptember 2016.

The Academy Awards, now officially known as The Oscars, are a set of awards given annually for excellence in cinematic achievements. The Oscar statuette is officially named the Academy Award of Merit and is one of nine types of Academy Awards. Organized and are overseen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).