Italy has announced its entry into the best foreign film category of the 2006Academy Awards as Nuovomondo (TheGolden Door).

Written and directed by Emanuele Crialese, the $11 million movie is a period epic about Italianemigration, set in the early 20th Century. It follows a family as they headfrom Sicily to America and is scripted in authentic Sicilian dialect. The "golden door" ofthe title refers to New York's Ellis Island, the US immigration check-point until its closure in 1954.

Nuovomondostars French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and Sicilian actor VincenzoAmato. It is Crialese's third feature, after Respiro (2002) and his 1997 debut, Once We Were Strangers.

The last Italian film to win theforeign-language section of the Oscars was Roberto Benigni's Life Is Beautiful .

The five foreign titles to be short-listedfor the Oscar will be announced on January 23.