Romania has entered the Oscar race with the Berlin Film Festival winner "Aferim!."

The country announced its submission this week and "Aferim!" was a favorite from the start especially after having won the Best Director award at Berlin. The film later went on to play at the Tribeca Film Festival where it also scored raves.

"Aferim!" is set in Eastern Europe in 1835 where two riders cross a barren landscape in the middle of Wallachia in search of a gypsy slave who has run away from his nobleman master and is suspected of having an affair with the noble's wife.

Buzz for the picture has been strong and Big World Pictures has already acquired it for release. The company is expected to release it at the beginning of next year.

The film will compete to get the country's first Oscar nomination as Romania has never been nominated. The country has been submitting to the Academy Awards since 1966 and has had two strong chances. In 2007, Romania submitted "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days" after winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. It was considered an early Oscar favorite, but it failed to make the top nine shortlist.

In 2012 "Beyond the Hills," which premiered at Cannes, made the Top nine shortlist. However, it failed to receive the nomination.

Last year the country submitted "The Japanese Dog," which was a long shot given the obscurity and the lack of a U.S. distributor. It also did not help that the film did not open in a major festival. "Aferim!" is the latest Romanian to have premiered at the Berlin Film Festival. Prior to that, "Child's Pose" was submitted in 2013 after having won the Golden Bear, Berlin's highest honor.

"Aferim!" is in a good spot given the fact that the Academy usually favors features that premiere at larger festivals such as Cannes, Venice, Tribeca, Sundance, Toronto or even Berlin. Last year, three of the five nominees premiered at Cannes while one of the films premiered at Toronto. Only "Tangerines" was able to get nominated without a debut at a huge festival. However, that rarely occurs.

Romania is the second country to announce its submission as Hungary announced back in June that it would submit "Son of Saul." That film is already considered the front runner given the fact that the movie opened at Cannes to overwhelmingly positive reviews and won the Grand Jury Award.

Whether "Aferim!" is nominated or not will depend on the Oscar campaign the country gives it and the push that its new distributor Big World Pictures gives it.

In the next few weeks, more countries are expected to announce their submissions including Mexico, Colombia, Spain and France.

The foreign film category has recently been won by Poland's "Ida," Italy's "The Great Beauty," Austria's "Amour," Iran's "A Separation," Denmark's "In a Better World" and Argentina's "The Secret in Their Eyes."

The deadline for foreign film consideration is Oct. 1. The Academy will announce the eligible submissions in October 2015 and will later choose nine finalists from the submitted films. Those nine will then be re-screened in mid-January to choose the final five nominees.

Related