Karen Shakhnazarov’s Ward No.6 has been selected as the Russian foreign-language Oscar contender for next year’s Academy Awards.

The film is based on the Anton Chekhov short story of the same name and stars Vladimir Ilyin, Aleksei Zharkov and Aleksandr Pankratov-Cherniy among others.  It has been picked ahead of films such as Valery Todorovsky’s Hipsters, which took a host of awards, including best film, at the Nika Awards earlier this year.

The Russian Oscar committee is led by director and actor Vladimir Menshov and also includes industry heavyweights such as film-maker Nikita Mikhalkov and director Andrei Konchalovsky.

The last Russian film to win a foreign-language Oscar was Nikita Mikhalkov’s Burnt By The Sun in 1994.

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