HUSAVIK, Iceland — On a recent Monday, in the back room of an empty seaside hotel here, a group of locals gathered anxiously around a computer livestreaming the 93rd Academy Awards nominations, waiting to discover whether their campaigning had been successful. A little after 1 p.m. came the good news, and the residents heard the name of their town said in an American accent one more time: “Husavik,” a song from the Netflix film “Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga,” was nominated for best original song. The song gets its name from this tiny coastal town — which is also home to the film’s main characters — and for weeks, residents had been working to get the song an Oscar nomination. “I teared up” on hearing the news, said Orlygur Orlygsson, 37, one of the campaigners gathered in the hotel. “The film gave Husavik worldwide recognition, and we wanted to do the same for the song.” Yet he was still shocked by the nomination, he said.

Source: International New York Times March 25, 2021 10:52 UTC