TUNIS — The National Centre for Cinema and Image (CNCI) has extended the deadline for Tunisian producers to submit a film for the country's entry in the Best International Feature Film category at the 99th Academy Awards. Applications now close on Friday 21 August at 1.30 p.m., a week later than the original cut-off of 14 August. Files are to be lodged at the CNCI's offices at the Cité de la Culture on Avenue Mohamed V in Tunis, accompanied by documents establishing the film's eligibility under the rules of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A commission convened by the CNCI will make the selection. The ceremony is scheduled for 14 March 2027 in Los Angeles.

An extension is a routine administrative act. What makes this one worth noting is the season it falls in. Tunisian cinema is having one of its strongest festival years in recent memory, and the national submission process is running on a two-week window in mid-August.

A crowded season

At the 83rd Venice Film Festival, running from 2 to 12 September, Kamel Laaridhi's first feature "The Hallow Man" has been selected in official competition at the 41st International Critics' Week — a section that this year holds only seven first features. It receives its world premiere on 9 September. Youssef Chebbi's second fiction feature "Plague" (Balaa), a political thriller shot in the Tozeur region around the red palm weevil infestation that reached Tunisia in 2010, is one of six projects chosen for the 14th Final Cut in Venice, the post-production workshop within the Venice Production Bridge. Produced by Blast Film (Tunisia) and Supernova Films (France) in co-production with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Slovenia, it carries a budget of 1.06 million euros and will be presented to distributors and programmers at the Lido from 6 to 8 September. Kaouther Ben Hania sits on the jury of Venice's official competition, chaired by the American director Maggie Gyllenhaal.

Earlier this month, Abdelhamid Bouchnak's "Bakma" had its world premiere at the 79th Locarno Film Festival in the Fuori Concorso section, with Afef Ben Mahmoud serving on the Cineasti del Presente jury.

The structural problem behind a routine extension

Tunisia has submitted films to the Best International Feature category for decades and has never received a nomination. The reasons are only partly artistic. The Academy's rules require a qualifying theatrical release in the country of origin within a defined window, and the shortlist is decided by voters who see films through campaigns — screenings, press, publicists, a distributor in the United States. A film selected in mid-August for a March ceremony has roughly seven months to build that visibility, most of it without a budget line for it.

Neighbouring countries have addressed this differently. Morocco's Centre cinématographique marocain runs its national selection earlier in the calendar and pairs it with support for international distribution; Tunisia's own films have historically travelled furthest when a French or Qatari co-producer carried the campaign, as with the co-production structures visible on this year's Venice slate.

The extension itself is evidence of the underlying issue: a deadline that had to move suggests the pool of submitted, eligible titles was thinner than it should be in a year this rich. Eligibility, not quality, is the likely constraint — a qualifying commercial release in Tunisian cinemas is not straightforward for films that premiere at autumn festivals, and the country's exhibition network remains small.

What producers and the CNCI have proposed

The measures most often raised by Tunisian producers are unglamorous and specific. Publishing the selection commission's composition and criteria, as several European national bodies do, would make the outcome contestable on its merits. Aligning the national call with the festival calendar — opening it in spring rather than August — would let films premiering at Cannes, Locarno and Venice organise a qualifying release in time. And a dedicated line for the selected film's international campaign, however modest, would convert a nomination from an accident of co-production into something the country actually competes for.

Submissions close at 1.30 p.m. on Friday. Whoever is chosen will represent a national cinema that this autumn has two films at Venice, a director on its jury, and no established mechanism for turning any of that into an Oscar campaign.