Sophia Loren said Thursday she is convinced that Italy's acclaimed Mafia film Gomorrah will win an Oscar at next year's awards.
''It's a very important film that, I'm sure, will win many prizes,'' said Loren, who has two Academy Awards herself.
''I'll vote for it. It's a great film that says something and wants to fight something''.
Loren was the first person to win an Oscar in the leading role category for a film that was not in English with Vittorio De Sica's 1960 drama La Ciociara (Two Women).
Only two other foreign actors have done so since: Italian Roberto Benigni, who received Best Actor for Life is Beautiful in 1998, and French actress Marion Cotillard for La Vie en Rose in 2007.
Loren, who presented Benigni with his award, also received an honorary Oscar for her career in 1991.
Matteo Garrone's hard-hitting Naples Mob expose' is Italy's candidate in the Best Foreign Film category but also hopes for nominations in the overall best film, screenplay and director categories.
In November the film earned applause from an audience in Hollywood including Academy members Oliver Stone and Paul Mazursky.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is set to vote a 'long list' of nine foreign films later this month and whittle it down to the five Oscar nominees in late January, a month before the Oscar ceremony.
Gomorrah, which won second prize at this year's Cannes Film Festival and bagged the best screenplay award at the recent Chicago Film Fest, is seen as the early favourite for the honour.
The 81st Oscar ceremony will take place in Los Angeles on February 22.
Gomorrah, which was adapted from Roberto Saviano's book of the same name, is also up for a Golden Globe.
It made the short list of five foreign films for the prestigious award which will be handed out on January 11.
The Golden Globes precede the Oscars by a month and are often seen as a bellwether for the Academy Awards.
