Spanish film named best foreign-language film of year

Mar adentro ("The Sea Inside"), an Alejandro Amenábar film based on the life of Ramón Sampedro, was the favorite going into the Oscars tonight to win the award as best foreign-language film, and it met expectations. Sampedro, a quadriplegic, was a household name in much of Europe during his long fight to get legal approval for assisted suicide. He eventually died of an unsanctioned assisted suicide in 1998. You can read an earlier article about the movie here. The award will likely increase the film's chances of being shown more widely in the United States, where it has played in only several dozen theaters and has yet to reach a box office gross of $1 million.