A slew of countries haveannounced their selections for the foreign language category of the AcademyAwards, just days before the final deadline on October 3.

- Anders Thomas Jensen Adam's Apples has been selected as theDanish entry. The popular comedy has sofar sold more than 350,000 tickets in Denmark.

Anders Thomas Jensen haspreviously been nominated three times for the Oscars in the short filmcategory, winning in 1999 with his ElectionNight.

Denmark has not won theOscar for Best Foreign Film since back-to-back wins in 1987 and 1988 withGabriel Axel's Babette's Feast andthen Bille August's Pelle the Conqueror.

- The Czech Film andTelevision Academy (CFTA) has selected Bohdan Slama's Something Like Happiness as the Czech candidate, days after itwon the Golden Shell at San Sebastian.

Slama and producer PavelStrnad will next present their film at the 43rd New York Film Festival, markingthe first time in 27 years a Czech feature film has screened at the festival.

Something Like Happiness currently tops the box office at home in the CzechRepublic, where it is distributed by Bontonfilm. More than 25,000 people sawthe film during its opening weekend.

- The Death of MrLazarescu, from Romanian director Cristi Puiu, has been nominated torepresent Romania.

Puiu's movie, which portraysthe journey of an ailing old man into the hellish depths of Bucharest'shospitals during the course of one night, won Un Certain Regard at Cannes aswell as awards at festivals in Copenhagen, Hungary and Romania. The filmscreened at Toronto and will appear in the main programme at the 43rd New YorkFilm Festival. Distribution in Romania is handled by producer MandragoraMovies.

- Paradise Now byDutch-Palestinian director Hany Abu-Assad has been selected this year's PalestinianOscar entry. It is only the third film ever to have been submitted byPalestine.

The controversial film follows the last days of two Palestinian childhood friends whohave been recruited for a suicide attack on Tel Aviv. The feature is a primarilyDutch production (Augustus Film), in co-production with Razor Films (Germany)and Lumen Films (France) in collaboration with Israeli co-producer Lama Films.

Since the mostly European produced film is in Arabicand mostly shot in the Palestinian Territories by a Palestinian born director,it has been entered as a Palestinian film.

ParadiseNow won this year's Blue Angel Award for Best EuropeanFilm and the Amnesty International Award during the Berlinale. WarnerIndependent Pictures is releasing in the USA on October 14.

- Mijke de Jong's Bluebird has been named asthe official Netherlands entry. Produced by Hans de Wolf and Hans de Weers for EgmondFilm and Television and co-produced by NCRV Television, Bluebird isabout a thirteen-year-old girl who faces up to bullying at school.

Other previouslyannounced entries include:
China: Chen Kaige's The Promise.
Hong Kong: Peter Chan's Perhaps Love
India: Amol Palekar's Paheli
Switzerland: Greg Zglinski's Tout Un Hiver Sans Feu
Germany: Marc Rothemund's Sophie Scholl - The Final Days
Canada: Jean-Marc Vallee's C.R.A.Z.Y.
France: Christian Carion's Merry Christmas
Taiwan: Tsai Ming-liang's The Wayward Cloud
Fiji: Vilsoni Hereniko's The Land Has Eyes
South Korea: Welcome To Dongmakgol
Thailand: Jira Maligool's The Tin Mine
Hungary: Lajos Koltai's Fateless
South Africa: Gavin Hood's Tsotsi
Brazil: Two Sons Of Francisco

Theo Schwinke, RobbertBlockland and Jacob Wendt Jensen contributed to this report.