101 Countries in Oscars 2027 Race; New Zealand Sends Entry in Extra Time

Registration for the 2027 Oscars for Best International Feature Film is still open, and New Zealand is the last country to join the race.

Registration for the 2027 Oscars for Best International Feature Film is still open, and New Zealand is the latest country to join the race.

According to Ambassador Arjan, quoted by Daily Screen, the 99th Academy Awards ceremony, which is scheduled to be held on March 14, 2027 at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, is still completing the list of representatives from different countries, while the deadline for registration was October 1 (October 9).

Among the registrants, a list of 15 primary candidates will be announced on December 15, 2026, and 5 final candidates will be announced on January 21, 2027. While representatives from 86 countries were eligible for the 2026 awards, the five nominated films were "Emotional Value" (Norway), "A Simple Accident" (France), "Secret Agent" (Brazil), "Sarat" (Spain) and "Voice of India Rajab" (Tunisia).

Before this, Britain entered this competition with "Exercises for a Revolution", a documentary by Pegah Ahangarani, after the deadline. While 101 countries have nominated their nominees so far this year, Oscar has not yet announced the number of eligible candidates.

New Zealand, as the last country to enter the competition this year, has chosen Marama, the first feature film of Tarato Stoppard, a New Zealand writer and director living in the UK, as its representative. Set in Victorian Yorkshire, the film follows a young Maori woman who is summoned from New Zealand to England, where she discovers the terrible truth of her colonial heritage.

Toby Stephens, Errol Shand and Amy Myers star in this film, which was screened in 2025 in Toronto as well as in Zurich and Sitges.

For the first time in 2011, New Zealand nominated a film for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. Since that year, New Zealand has submitted 8 films to the Oscar competition, none of which have been nominated.