2018 has been the year of Netflix really trying to play with the big boys of Hollywood. As well as making the two best romcoms of the year – Set It Up and To All The Boys I Loved Before – and a range of deliciously budget Christmas movies, the streaming giant has become a for-real film distributor, and has its best ever shot at Oscar glory with Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma.
The Children Of Men director is coming into award season with the unstoppable momentum of a drunk teenager careening down a carpark ramp in a shopping trolley. The film has three Golden Globe and eight Critic’s Choice nominations, was named as the best movie of the year by Time, the NY and LA Critics’ Association and Sight & Sound, won the Golden Lion at Venice, and is Mexico’s entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars.
Yes, Mexico. Cuaron is Mexican, the film is set in Mexico City, and it’s in Spanish. It has nothing to do with the Italian capital, Rome.
Apparently enough people are getting this wrong that Netflix felt the need to point it out.
Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma takes place in Roma, a district of Mexico City, Mexico. The other Roma is the capital of Italy. Feel free to print this and hand it out to your friends! pic.twitter.com/VOtraJnS8e
— Netflix Film (@NetflixFilm) December 10, 2018
How bummed is Netflix that Cuaron picked the title 'Roma' – thus making 50% of their press efforts about how the movie is actually NOT about the Roma people or the city in Italy but rather a neighborhood in Mexico City.
— Doug Stern (@dougstern) December 2, 2018
So there you have it, folks. Mexico, not Italy. Get it right now, sound hella knowledgable at your Oscar parties later.