NO ARAMAIC OSCAR:

Passion' Can't Win a Foreign Language Oscar
Tue, Mar 09, 2004, 01:03 PM PT
By Mike Szymanski

LOS ANGELES (Zap2it.com) - Mel Gibson's box office blockbuster, "The Passion of the Christ" won't be eligible for a foreign language Oscar nomination, according to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

Although the whole movie is spoken in Aramaic and a form of street Latin, Gibson's company that produced the movie is American.

"It won't be eligible for the foreign language award because it was produced by an American company so it's considered an American film," explains Academy publicist Dawn Newell to Zap2it.com. "Although the film is in Aramaic, it wouldn't be submitted by a foreign country so it wouldn't qualify for the foreign language category."

[...]