BOGOTÁ, Colombia (AFP) — The fires that have devastated Los Angeles bode badly for foreign entries in this year’s Oscars, the French director of the acclaimed Spanish-language musical
Emilia Perez told AFP on the eve of the nominations.

Jacques Audiard’s surreal Spanish-language musical drama about a transgender Mexican drug baron, who tries to make amends for her violent past by helping trace people disappeared by cartels, is one of the favourites for Best Picture at this year’s Academy Awards.

Starring singer-actress Selena Gomez, Avatar star Zoe Saldana, and Spanish transgender actress Karla Sofia Gascon, the film, which won four Golden Globes and the runner-up prize in Cannes, is also tipped to garner acting and directing nods.

But in an interview with AFP in Bogota, Audiard said he expected Hollywood to “play it local” in the wake of the blazes which have killed at least 27 people and razed entire neighbourhoods in America’s entertainment capital.

Film and TV stars have been among those who lost their homes, including Anthony Hopkins, Billy Crystal, Jeff Bridges, and Jamie Lee Curtis.

“I was thinking about that day the other day,” Audiard, dubbed the Scorsese of French cinema for his gritty films about low-lifers and outsiders, said when asked about his prospects for taking home a statuette.

“I said to myself that, given what happened in Los Angeles, with all the problems they must be having at the moment, they will have to, in my opinion, play it local.”

“They [Americans] will have to reassert themselves and regain confidence, which they will probably do through their cinema industry,” the 72-year-old film-maker predicted.

After twice being postponed due to the Los Angeles fires the Oscar nominations will be announced online on Thursday.

Audiard, one of France’s greatest living directors, has been in the running for an Academy Award before, with his bleak 2009 masterpiece A Prophet, about a French-Arab youth rising through the criminal ranks in prison, winning a nomination for Best Foreign Film.

He has a history of making films in languages other than French, from Dheepan, about three Sri Lankan refugees struggling to start over in a tough Parisian housing estate told mostly in Tamil, to his philosophical English-language Western “The Sisters Brothers” starring Joaquin Phoenix and Jake Gyllenhaal.

“Emilia Perez,” the latest offering in his genre-hopping career, had been tipped for success but the last leg of its Oscars odyssey has been marred by the critical roasting it received in Mexico where it is due to open in cinemas on Thursday.