(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-01-16 16:03

Nine movies have made the short list for best foreign-language film Oscar, but only five will ultimately go on to compete for the honor, organizers said Tuesday.

Oscar statuettes await polishing on the R.S. Owens factory floor in Chicago January 11, 2008. [Agencies]

The films survived a first round of cuts by a group of Oscar voters, who whittled the 63 entries that had been submitted by their home countries and regions down to nine.

The films that will proceed to the next round of voting are Austria's "The Counterfeiters," Brazil's "The Year My Parents Went on Vacation," Canada's "Days of Darkness," Israel's "Beaufort," Italy's "The Unknown Woman," Kazakhstan's "Mongol," Poland's "Katyn," Russia's "12" and Serbia's "The Trap."

From that list, five nominees will be chosen and announced Jan. 22, along with the names of the other 80th Academy Awards contenders, in the Samuel Goldwyn Theater.

The Oscars will be presented Feb. 24 at the Kodak Theatre at Hollywood & Highland Center.

Germany's "The Lives of Others," about a playwright and his actress-girlfriend who come under police surveillance in 1980s East Berlin, won the foreign-language Oscar in 2007.