writing the screenplay. When  the 1992 Oscar nominations came out, A Place in the World was among  the nominees for Best Foreign Language Film (ironically, the film  that Argentina submitted was not). The Academys board of governors  learned that the film was in violation of the rule after the  nominations had come out and decided to remove it from the official  ballot. Aristarain felt that the board was out of line and after  failing the convince them to change their minds, he tried to sue on  the grounds of "breach of contract". He lost the suit on the ruling  that the Academy "has the complete, untrammeled ability to base the  awards on whatever it wants". Angry at the ruling, Aristarain made  the decision not to release the film in the United States. He  relented and it did get a minor release in early 1995 (where it  grossed $100,986). As for the Academy, in an effort to avoid this  kind of problem again, they rewrote their official rules to make the  submission process more mathematically sound.