Record number of submissions for Foreign Film Oscar

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. A record number of films -- 76 -- have been submitted for consideration for this year's Best Foreign Language Film category of the Academy Awards.

Moldova and Saudi Arabia have submitted films for the first time, while Montenegro is submitting for the first time as an independent nation.

Some of the more noteworthy submissions this year include:

"The Hunt" (Denmark), for which Mads Mikkelsen won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival as a man accused of child abuse; "Gloria" (Chile), starring Paulina Garcia as a middle-aged woman seeking romance (Garcia won acting honors at the Berlin International Film Festival); "Wadjda," about a young girl's wish for a bicycle, which is the first Saudi Arabian film directed by a woman; and "The Past," by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi, whose last film, "A Separation," won the 2012 Best Foreign Film Oscar.

Also: "The Grandmaster" (Hong Kong), Wong Kar-wai's tale of martial arts master Yip Man; "Omar," a tragic Palestinian love story set in the Occupied Territories; "Stalingrad," about the World War II battle (and the first Russian film in Imax 3-D); the Cambodian documentary "The Missing Picture," about surviving the Khmer Rouge; and "Heli," a violent Mexican drama about drug dealers and police corruption which won Amat Escalante the Best Director award at Cannes.

The 2013 submissions are:

Afghanistan: "Wajma -- An Afghan Love Story" (directed by Barmak Akram);
Albania: "Agon" (directed by Robert Budina);
Argentina: "The German Doctor" (directed by Lucía Puenzo);
Australia: "The Rocket" (directed by Kim Mordaunt);
Austria: "The Wall" (directed by Julian Polsler);
Azerbaijan: "Steppe Man" (directed by Shamil Aliyev);
Bangladesh: "Television" (directed by Mostofa Sarwar Farooki);
Belgium: "The Broken Circle Breakdown" (directed by Felix van Groeningen);
Bosnia and Herzegovina: "An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker" (directed by Danis Tanovic);
Brazil: "Neighboring Sounds" (directed by Kleber Mendonça Filho);
Bulgaria: "The Color of the Chameleon" (directed by Emil Hristov);
Cambodia: "The Missing Picture" (directed by Rithy Panh);
Canada: "Gabrielle" (directed by Louise Archambault);
Chad: "GriGris" (directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun);
Chile: "Gloria" (directed by Sebastián Lelio);
China: "Back to 1942" (directed by Feng Xiaogang);
Colombia: "La Playa DC" (directed by Juan Andrés Arango);
Croatia: "Halima's Path" (directed by Arsen Anton Ostojic);
Czech Republic: "The Don Juans" (directed by Jiri Menzel);
Denmark: "The Hunt" (directed by Thomas Vinterberg);
Dominican Republic: "Quien Manda?" Ronni Castillo);
Ecuador: "The Porcelain Horse" (directed by Javier Andrade);
Egypt: "Winter of Discontent" (directed by Ibrahim El Batout);
Estonia: "Free Range" (directed by Veiko Ounpuu);
Finland: "Disciple" (directed by Ulrika Bengts);
France: "Renoir" (directed by Gilles Bourdos);
Georgia: "In Bloom" (directed by Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross);
Germany: "Two Lives" (directed by Georg Maas);
Greece: "Boy Eating the Bird's Food" (directed by Ektoras Lygizos);
Hong Kong: "The Grandmaster" (directed by Wong Kar-wai);
Hungary: "The Notebook" (directed by Janos Szasz);
Iceland: "Of Horses and Men" (directed by Benedikt Erlingsson);
India: "The Good Road" (directed by Gyan Correa);
Indonesia: "Sang Kiai" (directed by Rako Prijanto);
Iran: "The Past" (directed by Asghar Farhadi);
Israel: "Bethlehem" (directed by Yuval Adler);
Italy: "The Great Beauty" (directed by Paolo Sorrentino);
Japan: "The Great Passage" (directed by Ishii Yuya);
Kazakhstan: "Shal" (directed by Yermek Tursunov);
Latvia: "Mother, I Love You" (directed by Janis Nords);
Lebanon: "Blind Intersections" (directed by Lara Saba);
Lithuania: "Conversations on Serious Topics" (directed by Giedre Beinoriute);
Luxembourg: "Blind Spot" (directed by Christophe Wagner);
Mexico: "Heli" (directed by Amat Escalante);
Moldova: "All God's Children" (directed by Adrian Popovici);
Montenegro: "Ace of Spades - Bad Destiny" (directed by Drasko Djurovic);
Morocco: "Horses of God" (directed by Nabil Ayouch);
Nepal: "Soongava: Dance of the Orchids" (directed by Subarna Thapa);
Netherlands: "Borgman" (directed by Alex van Warmerdam);
New Zealand: "White Lies" (directed by Dana Rotberg);
Norway: "I Am Yours" (directed by Iram Haq);
Pakistan: "Zinda Bhaag" (directed by Meenu Gaur and Farjad Nabi);
Palestine: "Omar" (directed by Hany Abu-Assad);
Peru: "The Cleaner" (directed by Adrian Saba);
Philippines: "Transit" (directed by Hannah Espia);
Poland: "Walesa. Man of Hope" (directed by Andrzej Wajda);
Portugal: "Lines of Wellington" (directed by Valeria Sarmiento);
Romania: "Child's Pose" (directed by Calin Peter Netzer);
Russia: "Stalingrad" (directed by Fedor Bondarchuk);
Saudi Arabia: "Wadjda" (directed by Haifaa Al Mansour);
Serbia: "Circles" (directed by Srdan Golubovic);
Singapore: "Ilo Ilo" (directed by Anthony Chen);
Slovak Republic: "My Dog Killer" (directed by Mira Fornay);
Slovenia: "Class Enemy" (directed by Rok Bicek);
South Africa: "Four Corners" (directed by Ian Gabriel);
South Korea: "Juvenile Offender" (directed by Kang Yi-kwan);
Spain: "15 Years Plus a Day" (directed by Gracia Querejeta);
Sweden: "Eat Sleep Die" (directed by Gabriela Pichler);
Switzerland: "More than Honey" (directed by Markus Imhoof);
Taiwan: "Soul" (directed by Chung Mong-Hong);
Thailand: "Countdown" (directed by Nattawut Poonpiriya);
Turkey: "The Butterfly's Dream" (directed by Yilmaz Erdogan);
Ukraine: "Paradjanov" (directed by Serge Avedikian and Olena Fetisova);
United Kingdom: "Metro Manila" (directed by Sean Ellis);
Uruguay: "Anina" (directed by Alfredo Soderguit);
Venezuela: "Breach in the Silence" (directed by Luis Alejandro Rodriguez and Andres Eduardo Rodriguez).

Nominations for the 86th Academy Awards will be announced live on Thursday, January 16, 2014. TheOscars will be presentedon Sunday, March 2, 2014, at the Dolby Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center.