The Oscars: Canada’s ‘Monsieur Lazhar’ loses Best Foreign Language Film to Iran’s ‘A Separation’

Well, there's always the Genies! Iran's heavily-favoured "A Separation" beat out Canada's "Monsieur Lazhar" for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar on Sunday evening.

"Monsieur Lazhar," Quebec director Phillipe Falardeau's emotional story about Algerian refugee Bachir Lazhar (Mohammed Fellag), was not expected to win the hotly-contested category, but the Oscar loss is still disappointing. The film tells the story of a substitute teacher who helps a group of children deal with the shocking suicide of their previous instructor. It's exactly the kind of film that Academy voters typically favour in this category, but it appears to just not have been the year for it.

The nomination was Canada's sixth in the international category overall, and seventh if you count this year's nod for the Canada/Poland/Germany co-production "In Darkness," which also lost tonight. A Canadian film has only won the Best Foreign Language film once before: In 2003 Denys Arcand's acclaimed "The Barbarian Invasions" took home the coveted prize.

Despite the Oscar loss, "Monsieur Lazhar" will likely do extremely well when Canada's top film honours are given out at the Genies next month. The film has a total of nine Genie nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, and with the Oscar nomination in hand, "Monsieur Lazhar" is almost guaranteed a good showing on March 8 in Toronto.

More Oscar coverage from Yahoo! Canada Movies