Italian director Gianfranco Rosi's 'Notturno' (Nocturne) has made the Oscar shortlist, for best documentary, along with Laura Pausini's song for the latest Sophia Loren film, 'La vita davanti a sé', (The Life Ahead), the Academy said Tuesday evening.
The make-up and hair work for Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio also made the list, as well as Italian expat in France Filippo Meneghetti's debut Due (Two) which is on the best foreign film shortlist.
Loren, 86, who was not nominated for her acclaimed performance as an ex-prostitute who bonds with a migrant boy in her son Edoardo Ponti's latest work, is however in the short documentary shortlist for Ross Kauffman's study of her, What Would Sophia Loren Do?.
The score for Ponti's The Life Ahead has also made the shortlist, along with Pausini's song, 'Io sì' (Seen).
The nominations will be announced on March 15 and the Oscar handed out on April 25, two months late due to the COVID pandemic.
Rosi, 57, is an Italian-American documentary filmmaker.
His 2013 film Sacro GRA won the Golden Lion at the 70th Venice Film Festival, while his 2016 film 'Fuocammare' (Fire at Sea) won the Golden Bear at the 66th Berlin Film Festival.
Rosi is the only documentary filmmaker to win two highest awards at the three major European film festivals (Venice, Berlin, and Cannes) and is the only director besides Michael Haneke, Ang Lee, Ken Loach, and Jafar Panahi to do so in the 21st century.
Notturno, shot over the course of three years in Syria, Iraq, Kurdistan, and Lebanon, looks at ordinary people in Middle Eastern war zones as they struggle and hope for more peaceful lives.
Rosi has said he had been "deeply shaken" by what he filmed for Notturno on the borders of Iraq, Kurdistan, Syria and Lebanon.
He said he hoped the documentary would "open the eyes of people who have been anesthetized to what they see on TV about the effects of war".
The Asmara-born Roman director won Venice's top prize in 2013 with Sacro GRA, a tale of wacky lives on Rome's ring road.
He won the Golden Lion in Berlin in 2016 with Fuocoammare, a migrant drama set on the stepping-stone Sicilian island of Lampedusa.
Rosi was recently appointed a member of the Berlin Film Festival.
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