Cambodia's Oscar hopes ended this morning as director Rithy Panh's The Missing Picture was edged out by Italy's The Great Beauty.

Panh's autobiographical film, which used clay figures and sets to look at life under the Khmer Rouge regime, was one of five films competing for the best foreign-language picture at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

Some 50 people gathered to watch a live broadcast of the event at Phnom Penh's Bophana Audiovisual Resource Centre, the film preservation institute founded by Panh.