OSN to air 88th Academy Awards, Jordan wins Oscar nomination


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Rebecca Hawkes

| 15 January 2016




Middle East pay-TV operator OSN is gearing up for its coverage from the Academy Awards after it emerged that a film from Jordan has been nominated for best foreign language film for the first time.



E! Live on OSN will show live action from the ceremony in Los Angeles on 29 February (3am KSA time), where comedian Chris Rock will unveil this year’s winners.

Among them could be Theeb (Wolf), the debut feature from British-born, Jordan-based filmmaker Naji Abu Nowar, which wraps up a boy’s adventure story in a socio-political-historical drama.

Partially shot in Wadi Rum and set in 1916, Theeb tells the story of a Bedouin boy struggling for survival in the midst of WWI as Ottoman forces fight to keep a grip on their crumbling empire. The film’s director won the 2014 best director prize at the Venice Film Festival, where it received its premiere.

It is only the second submission by Jordan to the Academy Awards; in 2008 Amin Matalqa's Captain Abu Raed did not receive a nomination.

Meanwhile, in the run up to the much anticipated Oscar ceremony, regional pay-TV operator OSN will show a range of Oscar-winning movies, including Birdman, The Theory of Everything, Still Alice, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Whiplash, The Imitation Game, Foxcatcher and Selma.