Matteo Garrone’s gritty revenge drama “Dogman,” which won the best actor prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is Italy’s candidate for the foreign-language Oscar. Dubbed an “urban Western,” the movie is inspired by a murder committed by a dog groomer during the late 1980s in a gang-ridden area outside Rome. The film marks Garrone’s return to smaller-scale Italian-language filmmaking following his English-language fantasy “Tale of Tales.”

Garrone previously had a shot at Oscar glory with hit 2008 Neapolitan mob drama “Gomorrah,” which was considered a top contender in 2009 but did not make the Academy’s shortlist of nominees, causing a bit of a stir even among U.S. critics. Italy last won the prize – its 11th, the most of any country – in 2014 with Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty.” Sorrentino’s new film, “Loro,” about the excesses of the Berlusconi era, was expected to be in the running this year, but producer Indigo Film did not submit it to avoid potential friction with Garrone, according to sources.