Ahead of nominations for the best foreign film prize at this year's 79th Academy Awards nine films have bee short listed for Oscars. China's Curse of the Golden Flower didn't make the listing.

Pedro Almodovar's Volver was, on Tuesday, named one of the nine films. The veteran Spanish director's movie is one of the favorites for the Oscar prize but will have to wait until the January 23 Academy Award nomination listing to discover whether or not it'll make the final five.

Other movies included on the shortlist released by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are Mexico's Pan's Labyrinth, a fantasy from Guillermo Del Toro and Germany's The Lives of Others.

But a surprise omission was China's Curse of the Golden Flower. Zhang Yimou's epic had been tipped to vie for the top prize at the Oscars which will be held in Hollywood on February 25.

The nine films are:

Algeria, Days of Glory; Rachid Bouchareb, director;
Canada, Water; Deepa; Mehta, director;
Denmark, After the Wedding; Susanne Bier, director;
France, Avenue Montaigne; Daniele Thompson, director;
Germany, The Lives of Others; Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, director;
Mexico, Pan's Labyrinth; Guillermo del Toro, director;
The Netherlands, Black Book; Paul Verhoeven, director;
Spain, Volver; Pedro Almodovar, director;
Switzerland, Vitus; Fredi M. Murer, director

(CRI January 18, 2007)