The journey might end up taking two years, but Thomas Vinterberg's 2012 film ‘Jagten’ (‘The Hunt’), as was expected, has been nominated as Denmark's candidate for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the 2013 Oscars, which will take place in early 2014.

The DFI’s Danish Oscar Submitting Committee confirmed the selection on Thursday. ‘The Hunt’, which stars Mads Mikkelsen as a teacher falsely accused of sexually abusing a child, saw off competition from Michael Noer's ‘Northwest’ and Joshua Oppenheimer's ‘The Act of Killing’.

READ MORE: The hunt for gongs goes on and on

“‘The Hunt’ has proven to be a film with great international potential,” confirmed committee chairman Henrik Bo Nielsen, who is also the head of the DFI. 

“We believe that the Academy members will find 'The Hunt' worth considering in the upcoming nomination rounds.”

Initially the the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will announce a nine-film shortlist in December (last year it was released on December 21) before reducing the number to five when it announces all of the Oscar nominations on January 16.

Should ‘The Hunt’, a 2012 Golden Globe nominee, make it to the final five, it will be the third time in four years that a film produced by Sisse Graum Jørgensen has made the shortlist, following ‘Hævnen’ (‘In a Better World’) in 2010 and ‘En kongelig affære’ (‘A Royal Affair’) in 2012.

This year’s Academy Awards ceremony will take place on March 2.