Asia eyes Oscar glitz, glamour even as its own films absent

Asia will be tuning in to the Oscars and its glitz and glamour, even though the region's films are missing from the shortlists.
Users of Chinese social media discuss animatedly whether comedy "Birdman" or the 12-years-in the-making "Boyhood" will win best picture movies that haven't been shown in theaters here but are available on streaming websites.
The interest is evident even though Asian films are sorely lacking on the foreign language category shortlist something that frustrates some Asian filmmakers and industry insiders, while others expected nothing less from voting dominated by Los Angeles-based Academy members.
The lack of an Asian presence comes despite China and Japan being the world's second- and third-biggest movie markets by ticket sales. Bollywood churns out more than a 1,000 films a year, and only five Indians have ever won at the Oscars, three of whom for 2009 Oscar winner "Slumdog Millionaire," a British movie.

"I mean who wouldn't want to win an Oscar, but we don't make films with an eye to the Academy," said Supratik Sen, a writer and assistant director on several Bollywood films.
"That whole thing is very Hollywood-centric." For film buffs and serious filmmakers in India, recognition at Cannes, Venice and Sundance "has more street cred," Sen added.
This year, no Asian pictures made the nine-film shortlist in the foreign language category, whittled from 83 films submitted by 83 governments. The nine were chosen by a committee consisting of several hundred LA-based Academy members and a foreign language film award executive committee.

Entries included Hong Kong's "The Golden Era," a biographical film about Chinese novelist Xiao Hong, shot partly in a documentary style by award-winning director Ann Hui, and Taiwan's "Ice Poison," about two young people who are caught between lust and drug addiction in Myanmar.