BEFORE "indie" was a fully branded subsidiary of Disney, there was Sarah Jacobson, a rowdy filmmaking force who descended on San Francisco in the early '90s like a tornado. Sarah died Feb. 13 in New York City, after struggling with a cancer that was initially misdiagnosed as a muscle pull. In retrospect, it seems like she just touched down here, but the damage (and I use that word in the very best sense) was lasting. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute in the early '90s, directed I Was a Teenage Serial Killer in 1993, then built and launched the girl-punk opus Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore that sent her into orbit in 1997. Her enthusiasm for underground film, her appetites for music and mayhem, and her ability to make lasting friends with just about everyone she came across are legendary.

I don't remember when I first met Sarah, or when I last saw her, but the picture I have of her is always the same, with promo postcards in hand and a party to go to. At one point we lived just blocks from each other, and I was part of the rabble Sarah was always ready to rouse. Or, as the case may be, nurture. Her mother – who'd spent years as Sarah's right-hand marketing manager – gave me the best advice I'd ever gotten from a chance meeting at Sundance: "Drink lots of water!"

Friends and admirers have been reeling and writing about Sarah since her sad, early death. Beth Allen, a former Bay Guardian employee who starred in Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore, remembered the first outfit she saw Sarah in: silver shoes and a miniskirt, which exposed big, hairy legs. Allen writes, "I thought 'My god, that is one cool chick.' " They then bonded over serial killers, she wrote to me, later posting it on the "Remembering Sarah" site (www.indiewire.com/rememberingsarah) hosted by IndieWire. Sam Green, director of The Weather Underground, says that before meeting Sarah, he had no connection with, or knowledge of, underground and independent film at all. Sarah encouraged him to take his Rainbow Man/John 3:16 on a DIY Northwest tour, and the two of them took off in a pickup truck. Henry Rosenthal, a film producer and teacher, wrote on the site that, as far as he knew, "Sarah was the first and only person to open a film at Artists' Television Access and successfully move it over to a Landmark Theater." He called it a "miraculous feat" in upward theatrical booking.

Sarah apparently charmed the cities of New York and Los Angeles, and all points between, with the same energy she spent in San Francisco. Eugene Hernandez posted a comprehensive obituary on IndieWire, and friends opened up a forum for Sarah's fans, including Allison Anders and Nick Zedd, to toast her rich and rambunctious life. Before she died, Sarah achieved one last feat of sheer DIY willpower: she helped organize a selection of her shorts, which played in New York Feb. 18 and which Green, Craig Baldwin, Molli Simon, and Danny Plotnick are planning on bringing to ATA March 2 (call 415-824-3890 to confirm the date and for show times). (Susan Gerhard)

Foreign policy disputes

Last year City of God – Brazil's selection in the Best Foreign Language Film category – didn't receive a nomination, after rumors swirled that close to 60 people from the designated Foreign Language Film committee had walked out of an Academy screening. The snub provided the overall Academy with an opportunity to make amends, and a point, this year: Fernando Meirelles's movie received four nominations in other, broader categories – nominations it wouldn't have been eligible for if City of God had gotten the initial nomination (and, possibly, the award) many thought it deserved.

Yet the labyrinthine selection and nomination process for Best Foreign Language Film – marked by a two-page set of "Special Rules" – has sparked even stronger criticism this year. Golden Globe winner Osama didn't receive a nomination, and a number of highly prized films from 2003's festival circuit – the visually stunning Cannes Grand Prize victor Distant (from Turkey), and Venice faves The Return (from Russia) and Last Life in the Universe (from Thailand; my favorite film of last year) – were shut out. Omissions with pop appeal included Germany's Good Bye Lenin!, Hong Kong's Infernal Affairs (set for a Scorsese remake), and Mongolia's Story of the Weeping Camel.

The history of the Foreign Language Film category reveals a number of telltale signs. Only one film from an African country has received an Oscar; Asia's victories have been limited to Akira Kurosawa and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Humanist icons such as Kurosawa and Federico Fellini are multihonored, while combatants such as Jean-Luc Godard remain wholly ignored. In recent years masterpieces including Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood for Love and Hou Hsiao-hsien's Flowers of Shanghai have been selected to represent their countries but were denied a nomination.

"For every complaint, there's an exception," notes Ryan Werner of Wellspring Pictures, when asked for his opinion of the selection and nomination process. "I don't think you can meddle with how the films are chosen by a country, but I would like to see a more varied committee – the committee is generally over 60 [years old]. I can't imagine the Academy enjoying a film like [Taiwan's non-nominated 2004 selection] Goodbye Dragon Inn, which for me is the richest and most inventive of Tsai Ming-liang's career."

Fredell Pogodin, a Los Angeles-based publicist who has handled numerous Foreign Language Film selections, says she heard comments such as "You call that a film?," after a screening of Elia Suleiman's controversial Palestinian entry Divine Intervention, and "That's propaganda," after Osama's screening. "The vote is middlebrow," she says. "There's a tendency to like things with a conventional narrative and high production values and to not like anything dark or bleak."

Pogodin feels the nomination process this year was additionally hampered by the screener-tape ban in other, broader categories, which cut into committee members' already cramped viewing time. The ever widening number of selections has required movies to be placed in three initial screening subgroups, and countries with a large number of past wins – France, Italy – tend to be placed in different groups. While the voting in many categories – such as Documentary Feature – is limited to Academy members who work in the designated field, the Foreign Language Film committee is more of a free-for-all. ("What are you going to do, form a foreign directors' branch?" Pogodin quips.)

This year's nominees include the Netherlands' largely unknown Twin Sisters and Japan's questionable selection The Twilight Samurai (which might have benefited from Kurosawa nostalgia and Last Samurai hype). Problems may be multifold, but one thing is certain: the victor will reap box-office benefits. Last year's Oscar-night champ – Germany's Nowhere in Africa – netted extra millions after its Academy Award success.

Johnny Ray Huston