Venezuela has become the first Latin American country to select its candidate in the foreign-language film competition at the 91st edition of the Academy Awards. The South American country has selected La Familia, the debut feature by Guillermo Rondón Córdova, as its Oscar contender.
La Familia, a co-production between Venezuela, Chile and Norway which had its world premiere at the International Critics' Week at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, follows 12-year-old Pedro, who roams the streets with his friends, raised by the violent urban atmosphere around him in a working class district of Caracas. After Pedro seriously injures another boy in a rough game of play, his single father Andrés decides they must flee to hide. Andrés will realize he is incapable of controlling his own teenage son, but their situation will bring them closer than they have ever been.
Venezuela first submitted an Oscar candidate in 1978, and the country has yet to received an Academy Award nomination—the closest that the South American nation has been to a nomination was in 2014 when Alberto Arvelo's epic The Liberator was shortlisted.
