While the candy-colored mega-hit "Barbie" was shortlisted across five categories, international films and documentaries exploring conflict and culture too staked Oscar claims.Kicking off Oscar season for 2024, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Thursday its shortlists in 10 categories — including best original song, documentary feature, international feature, original score, visual effects and sound.

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The "Barbie" power ballad "I'm Just Ken" was among several chart-toppers up for best original song.

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Two more were from the same film: Dua Lipa's "Dance the Night" and Billie Eilish's "What Was I Made For?"; while Lenny Kravitz got a nod for song "Road to Freedom" from "Rustin," and Jarvis Cocker for "Dear Alien (Who Art In Heaven)" from "Asteroid City."

Ukraine siege documentary shortlisted for two categories

Meanwhile, the Ukraine war film "20 Days in Mariupol" was shortlisted in both the documentary and international feature categories.

The film's director, Pulitzer Prize-winning Ukrainian journalist Mstyslav Chernov, knows global attention is shifting to Israel but his film on Russian atrocities remains essential, he told DW during its German premiere at Berlin's Human Rights Film Festival in October.

The film, which has also won the World Cinema documentary prize following its successful Sundance premiere, is based on footage collected by AP reporters in the first 20 days of Russia's siege of the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol in March 2022.

It features the shocking scene, which went viral around the world, of a pregnant woman being carried away on a stretcher after a Russian missile strike on a maternity hospital.

These snippets, drawn from 30 hours of footage, have a powerful impact. But for Chernov, they are "not enough to speak about all the tragedies that happened in Mariupol."

Acclaimed Auschwitz drama makes the grade

Also in contention for the best international feature Oscar is Jonathan Glazer's British entry, the Holocaust drama, "The Zone of Interest."

Winner of this year's Cannes Film Festival Grand Prix, the runner-up to the Palme d'Or prize, "The Zone of Interest" takes place outside the walls of the Auschwitz extermination camp and, incredibly, features no violence.

It stars Academy Award nominee Sandra Hüller ("Toni Erdmann") in the role of Hedwig Höss, the real-life wife of Rudolf Höss, the longest-serving commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Höss, played in the film by Christian Friedel, was hanged for war crimes in 1947.

Hüller has been making headlines amid the ongoing film award season. The German actress has already earned top prizes and nominations for this performance as well as for her other lead role of 2023, in "Anatomy of a Fall."

Director Jonathan Glazer ("Under the Skin") says Hüller was "very apprehensive" about portraying a Nazi on screen, something that she had until then refused to do. But the British director convinced her his film, based on the 2014 novel of the same name by British writer Martin Amis, would be different.

In the shadow of mass extermination, the entire film plays out like a family drama as the Höss family picnic by the river, play in the garden or chat with their friends.

Meanwhile, the award-winning German psychological drama, "The Teachers’ Lounge," made the shortlist with a more contemporary theme.

Described by The Hollywood Reporter as "a pulse-pounding exploration of the ways we draw lines between enemies and friends, and the courage it takes to blur them," the film portrays a teacher's vain attempt to uncover a crime.

Director Ilker Catak's provocative drama shows how individuals are ultimately worn down by entrenched power.

From Bhutan to Japan

Tokyo-set "Perfect Days," a film by veteran German director Wim Wenders, is also shortlisted for best international feature and is Japan's Oscar entry.

Legendary actor Koji Yakusho won best actor in Cannes for his lead role as an ageing, Zen-like toilet cleaner in the film that showcases Tokyo's architect-designed lavatories.

Other international feature films on the 15-film shortlist for nominations include Tran Anh Hung's "The Taste of Things" (France), Lila Aviles' "Totem" (Mexico), Finish director Aki Kaurismaki's "Fallen Leaves" and "The Monk and the Gun" from Bhutan.

"'The Monk and the Gun' is a story about the change and transition that Bhutan went through in the 2000s, when we became the last country in the world to allow television, to allow the internet and to allow democracy to come in," filmmaker Pawo Choyning Dorji told DW of the film.

Variety magazine has ranked "The Monk and the Gun" as a "top-tier possibility" for the award.

High profile names set for multiple Oscar nominations

Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" and Martin Scorsese's "Killers of the Flower Moon" were prominently represented among the finalists in many categories, including score and sound.

The opulent "Oppenheimer" was a notable omission, however, among the 10 finalists in the visual effects category.

Both "Oppenheimer" and "Killers of the Flower Moon" did make the cut for makeup and hairstyling, while "Barbie" missed out.

Big names also featured in the live action category, with both Pedro Almodovar's western "Strange Way of Life," starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal, and Wes Anderson's "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar," with Benedict Cumberbatch and Ben Kingsley, in the running.

The final list of nominations in all categories for the 96th Oscars will be announced on January 23. Jimmy Kimmel hosts the award ceremony on March 10, broadcasting live from the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Dec 22, 2023 05:30 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).