This Academy Award nominations are in. And the Best Foreign Language Film category, reducing the list of 54 submitted films down to five, once again cements the notion that foreign movies are obscure and inaccessible. But this year, it looks like politics played a larger role than usual. This was supposed to be a record year for the Best Foreign Language Film category: 58 movies were submitted for consideration, the most ever in the category’s history. Instead it’s set a very different kind of record: nine movies disqualified, the most ever since 1983. The rejections seem to have put the academy in a conciliatory mood.

In 2002, the academy refused to accept the submission of the Palestinian comedy “Divine Intervention” – claiming that the United Nations does not recognize Palestine as a country. Palestine still isn’t recognized as a country, but somehow its film this year, “Paradise Now,” made it to the final five.

South Africa’s “Tsotsi,” distributed by Miramax, has filled the unofficial “Miramax slot.” Almost every year one of Miramax’s acquisitions makes it to the final five – such as “Les Choristes” in 2004, “The Barbarian Invasions” in 2003, “Hero” in 2002,”Amelie” in 2001, “The Taste of Others” in 2000, and “Life Is Beautiful” in 1998. The Weinstein brothers’ new company, The Weinstein Company, did have a film in the running, China’s “The Promise.” But they inexplicably dumped it over a dispute with its producer – who said they weren’t pushing it for the Oscars aggressively enough.

France’s selection is a paradox. “The Beat That My Heart Skipped” was one of the few foreign movies to make more than $1 million in the United States, giving France a high profile contender. But instead they submitted the as-yet-unreleased “Joyeux Noel.” Germany’s “Sophie Scholl – the Final Days” reveals again the aging academy’s love for all things World War II. But the nomination of Italy’s “Don’t Tell” reveals the strange politics be hind the academy’s choices.

During this year’s landmark disqualifications, Tajikistan and Bolivia were booted because their prints didn’t arrive in time, Venezuela missed the boat when the filmmakers forgot to send the proper entry form, and the Netherlands lost out when the academy decided the film version of their entry, “Bluebird,” was too similar to a previously aired television version.

But four of the movies were cut because of the academy’s backward rules requiring films to be in the non-English language of their submitting country. Singapore’s administrative language is English, but its festival favorite, “Be With Me,” was disqualified because its dialogue contained too much English. Austria submitted “Cache,” a film that is still playing American theaters, but was disqualified because the dialogue is in French, not German – Austria’s official language.

Italy’s “Private” was the country’s highest-profile film from last year, but it was disqualified because its tale of conflict between Israel and Palestine is in Hebrew and Arabic, not Italian. The Italian industry was furious, and in protest the producer of “Private” withdrew his film “Manual of Love” from consideration, even though it was almost certainly the next choice. The academy’s selection of “Don’t Tell,” Italy’s fallback submission, feels like a political concession to mollify the Italian industry’s outrage. In previous years the language wouldn’t have mattered: Italy’s 1966 nominee at the Oscars was “The Battle of Algiers” – an entirely French and Arabic-language film with an Italian director and screenwriter.

Most disturbingly, there is something real at stake here. Grosses for foreign films in America are down 40% from last year, with only 10 foreign language movies earning more than $1 million at the box office. Last year, 19 of the foreign films submitted to the Academy had U.S. distributors, but this year that number is down to 12. Foreign films are dying in America, but the academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ response remains the same as always: inexplicable, ineffectual, and incompetent.