The secret to Oscar wins sex, spin and dirty tricks

Harvey Weinstein may be long gone, but the devious award campaigning he masterminded remains both alive and well. Geoffrey Macnab digs deep into the bold tactics that make sure certain films always come out on top on the big night

- Geoffrey Macnab

Few today have heard of the 1997 Dutch movie Character, but it won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. So did Antonia's Line (1995). At the beginning of the Noughties, the Netherlands produced further Oscar hits, earning nominations for dramas Twin Sisters (2002) and Zus & Zo (2001). Haven’t heard of those either? This streak was the product of a bit of Dutch film industry game-playing – having realised that the only Academy members with the time and inclination to actually watch international Oscar contenders tended to be at the end of their careers, the Dutch exclusively pushed tasteful, middlebrow dramas for consideration.

“In those days, [Academy voters] were all retirees, all older people,” says Claudia Landsberger, who was then the head of Dutch movie promotion agency Holland Film. They screened the films relentlessly and put ads in the industry trade magazines. “In those days, we could still have a party at the Consulate’s house. We’d have [Dutch filmmakers] Paul Verhoeven and Jan de Bont coming [to meet] all the Academy members.”

In the space of seven years, the Dutch racked up four Academy Awards nominations and two wins – and all for films that most of the general public outside the Netherlands didn’t even know existed. Their success cuts to an uncomfortable truth about awards campaigns. It isn’t necessarily the best films that win, but the ones that are marketed with the most chutzpah and cunning.

Sometimes, it can be as simple as choosing the right date – or dates. This year, many British audiences were puzzled by the decision to release Alexander Payne’s Oscar hopeful