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Matt Damon promotes The Bourne Ultimatum in Tokyo, and leaves the door open for another sequel. PHOTO:AP

In the run-up to the Oscars, a record 63 countries have entered the race for Oscar glory in next year's best foreign language film category, officials said Wednesday.

Academy Awards organizers announced the list of entries for the coveted prize roughly three months ahead of the formal announcement of nominations for other main categories at next year's 80th Oscars. The entries will be whittled down to five nominees who will jostle for the most famous statuette in show business, which will take place in Hollywood on Feb. 24.

The two debutants in the competition are entries from Azerbaijan and Ireland, the Academy said in a statement.

Romania's entry, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, is likely to be one of the early front-runners in the Oscar race. Filmmaker Cristian Mungiu scooped the prestigious Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival for his film, a wrenching story about a girl's back-alley abortion in communist-era Romania.

Nicolas Cage will star in the first major studio film by Hany Abu-Assad, the Palestinian director of Paradise Now. In Vanished, Cage, 43, will star as a father who goes in search of his American-born Muslim son who disappears abroad. Abu-Assad drew acclaim for Paradise Now, an Oscar-nominated film about two Palestinian youths drafted to be suicide bombers. Cage will start work on Vanished in April after finishing director Darren Aronofsky's indie drama The Wrestler. He recently completed work on the film Bangkok Dangerous as well as National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

Nicolas Cage will start filming Vanished, early next year. PHOTO: AP

Other notable entries included Portugal's Belle Toujours, the latest offering from Manoel de Oliveira, who at age 98 is believed to be the world's oldest working director.

Another veteran, Poland's Andrzej Wajda, has been entered for Katyn, a harrowing film about the massacre of civilians by Soviet troops in 1940. Wajda, 81, received an honorary Oscar in 2000.

Several directors who have already scored Oscar wins in the category are amongst the contenders. They include Italy's Giuseppe Tornatore, whose Cinema Paradiso triumphed in 1990. Tornatore is entered for The Unknown. Another former winner is Canada's Denys Arcand, whose The Barbarian Invasions won the 2004 Oscar. This time, Arcand is entered for Days of Darkness.

Although Orson Welles' 1941 film Citizen Kane won only one Oscar, it is widely considered his best movie. Now the Academy Award Welles received for his masterwork can be bought for a cool million - or maybe more. Sotheby's said it will auction off the statuette Welles won for screenwriting with Herman Mankiewicz in December. The auctioneer estimates it could fetch between US$800,000 and US$1.2 million.

Egyptian director Nadia Kamel, worried by messages of religious war her young nephew was hearing from Cairo mosques, decided to show him their own family's history of mixed marriage in a journey that takes her from Italy to Israel. The result is a 105 minute film documentary that sets out to expose him to a diverse and tolerant alternative to the 21st-century talk of a clash between Islam and the West, an alternative reflected in the life of his elderly grandmother, Mary.

Earlier this week, Matt Damon said he was open to another sequel of his Jason Bourne spy series but declined a fight against his genteel British counterpart James Bond.

Damon said that playing the taciturn American spy was his biggest professional success since 1997's Good Will Hunting, for which he shared a best writing Oscar with Ben Affleck.

"Personally, the character means a lot to me because the character has done so much for my career. You know, it put me in the position where I have a lot more choices of the kind of movies I want to make," he said in Tokyo.

The Bourne Ultimatum, directed by British Oscar-nominee Paul Greengrass, will hit Japanese cinemas next month, after having enjoyed financial successes and waves of flattering reviews elsewhere.

The first two films in the Bourne series - The Bourne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy - earned more than US$500 million worldwide, and Damon kept open the door for further sequels.

"If Paul Greengrass, maybe years down the road, was interested in doing another one, then I would do it, too," he said. "I don't think either of us completely put the character to bed yet."

But he ruled out a showdown with his fellow spy across the Atlantic, James Bond, now played by British actor Daniel Craig.

"He keeps himself in very good shape. I would like to avoid any confrontation with Daniel Craig if I can."- agencies
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