The Rocket's Oscar hopes go up in smoke Trailer: The Rocket A boy who is believed to bring bad luck to everyone around him leads his family and two new friends through Laos to find a new home. PT2M16S http://www.smh.com.au/action/externalEmbeddedPlayer?id=d-2scwl 620 349 August 22, 2013 Australia's hopes of clinching a first ever best foreign film win at the Academy Awards have been dashed with The Rocket failing to make the shortlist of nine films. Kim Mordaunt's story about a young boy who tries to prove he is not cursed by winning an annual Rocket Festival was shot in Laos and Thailand, with dialogue spoken in Laos. A scene from The Rocket. It was Australia's official entry in the best foreign film category, and a string of international festival prizes and audience-favourite awards appeared to bode well for its chances of at least becoming the first film from this country ever to be nominated in the category. But as the record 76 entries were winnowed by a Hollywood selection committee on the weekend, it did not figure on the shortlist of nine. After a second cull, the final five nominees will be announced on January 15, along with all other Oscar nominees. Australia can no longer cling even to a tenuous connection to the category as the Saudi Arabian entry Wadjda, made by former University of Sydney masters student Haifaa Al Mansour, also failed to make the shortlist. The nine films still in contention for the best foreign film Oscar are: The Broken Circle Breakdown (Belgium, dir: Felix van Groeningen) An Episode in the Life of an Iron Picker (Bosnia and Herzegovina, dir: Danis Tanovic) The Missing Picture (Cambodia, dir: Rithy Panh); The Hunt (Denmark, dir: Thomas Vinterberg) Two Lives (Germany, dir: Georg Maas; The Grandmaster (Hong Kong, dir: Wong Kar-wai) The Notebook (Hungary, dir: Janos Szasz) The Great Beauty (Italy, dir: Paolo Sorrentino Omar (Palestine, dir: Hany Abu-Assad)