Denmark has chosen "Land of Mine" to represent the country at the Oscars. Directed by Martin Zandvliet, the film premiered at the Toronto Film festival where it scored rave reviews.

The movie's selection was a bit of a surprise as it beat out Thomas Vinterberg's "The Commune." Vinterberg is a popular director in North america and his latest obtained raves out of Berlin and won the Best Actress award. However, "Land of Mine" is a very strong contender as it has won over 21 awards from the festival circuit and recently received U.S distribution from Sony Pictures Classics. That is a bonus given the fact that Sony has dominated the foreign language category for many years. Most of the recent winners have been distributed by Sony including""Son of Saul," "Amour," "A Separation" and "In a Better World" from Denmark. The distribution company has also led "Wild Tales," "Footnote," "Leviathan" "No," "Incendie" and "In Darkness" to nominations.

"Land of Mine" is Sony Pictures Classics' third film in the competition as the distributor will release Germany's "Toni Erdmann," and Spain's "Julieta," It will be interesting to see if all three films can make its onto the nomination ballot as the distributor was successful in 2011 when it won for "A Separation."

"Land of Mine" tells the story of a young group of German POWs who are made the enemy of a nation, where they are forced to dig up 2 million land-mines with their bare hands.

Denmark has been nominated for the Academy Award eleven times and in the last seven years the country has been nominated three times and won once. Its last win was in 2009 for "In a Better World" and the country was last nominated last year for the war drama "A War." That film premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was distributed by Magnolia Pictures.

Given the recent history with the Academy, Denmark's submission is among the strongest and could get the country a 12th nomination. Among the films it will have to go up against include "House of Others," "Sieranevada," "The Ardennes," "Chevalier" and "Mother." Other films that will also be strong competitors include "El Clasico," "From Afar" and "Neruda."

The Foreign Language Film deadline to submit is Oct. 3. On Jan. 17 the Academy will announce the nine finalists from among the eligible films and on Jan. 24 nominations will be announced. The winner will be announced at the Oscar ceremony on Feb. 26.

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