SWITZERLAND has picked “The Divine Order,” a feel-good drama about the fight for women’s suffrage in Europe’s last patriarchal holdout, as its entry for the 2018 foreign-language Oscar race.

The film chronicles Switzerland’s long-suffering suffragettes, who finally won women the right to vote in 1971. Marie Leuenberger stars as a young housewife and mother living in a Swiss village who gets caught up in the campaign.

Directed by Petra Volpe, “The Divine Order” premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, where it won an audience award, as well as actress honors for Leuenberger and the festival’s Nora Ephron Prize for Volpe.

At home, the movie has a been a box-office smash, selling more than 300,000 tickets for a total box office of some US$4.5 million, a huge figure for the tiny Alpine nation. Switzerland has punched above its weight at the Oscars, with five nominations and two Academy Awards in the foreign-language category: in 1984 for Richard Dembo’s “Dangerous Moves” and for Xavier Koller’s “Journey of Hope” in 1990.

The 90th Academy Awards will be held in Los Angeles on March 4, 2018.(SD-Agencies)