UK noms "Metro Manila" for Foreign Language Oscar (video)

 September 21, 2013 - 12:59 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Sundance title Metro Manila has been chosen to represent the UK in the Foreign Language Oscar category, making it the 11th film ever submitted by the country, Deadline said.

The film, which won the Audience Award in the World Cinema competition in Park City, is directed by British helmer Sean Ellis, an Oscar nominee in 2006 for his short Cashback.

The Tagalog-language Metro Manila centers on a poor farmer who moves his family to the capital city in search of a better life, only to unwittingly become mixed up with a criminal underworld after he takes a job as an armored transport driver.

Ellis wrote the script with Frankie E. Flowers. It hit British theaters via Independent. Paladin has North American rights.

There’s also a remake afoot courtesy of Fox International Productions. This is the third film with Filipino elements to be submitted to the Academy this year. Transit, by Hannah Espia, is the Philippines’ entry, and Anthony Chen’s Camera d’Or winner Ilo Ilo focuses on a Filipino domestic in Singapore, that film’s submitting country.