One month out from Hollywood’s ‘night of nights’, two Christian songwriters’ Oscar dreams have been shattered, with their song rescinded from nominations for Best Original Song.

“Alone Yet Not Alone” written by Bruce Broughton and Dennis Spiegel for a movie of the same name was nominated for a 2014 Oscar, beating out Coldplay, Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Lana Del Rey, just to name a few. The nomination came as a surprise to many critics, with the Huffington Post reporting that the nomination  “saw a slew of A-list frontrunners shut out in favour of a movie we’re fairly certain no one has heard of.” The movie will have a very limited release in the US, and is unlikely to hit movie screens in Australia.

Bruce Broughton is a former Academy governor who sits on its music committee, and The Academy has accused him of using his position on that committee as a platform to promote his nomination.

In the email, which Broughton sent to 70 Academy voters, he wrote “I’m sending this note only because it is extremely unlikely that this small, independent, faith-based film will be seen by any Music Branch member; it’s the only way I can think of to have anyone be aware of the song.”

Broughton has told supporters he didn’t believe he’d broken any of the Academy rules. Public ‘For Your Consideration’ campaigns in the lead up to the Oscars are prolific, with PR firms specialising in such campaigns paid hundreds of thousands for their efforts.

“You have to make sure that your film is much higher profile now than you used to,” Fredell Pogodin, a veteran awards publicist and owner of L.A. public relations firm Fredell Pogodin & Associates said to Fast Company in a recent interview about Oscar PR fever. “You have an advantage if branch members are familiar with your film and if people know who you are. If you’re a documentary director like Alex Gibney (Oscar winner for Taxi To The Dark Side and director of Maxima Mea Culpa), they’re more likely to watch your film right? But a lot of times, a lot of these filmmakers aren’t necessarily known. It’s their first film.”

But Broughton’s personal emails to members of the Music Branch was one step too far in what was otherwise a very modest campaign, according to the Academy.

“No matter how well intentioned the communication, using one’s position as a former governor and current executive committee member to personally promote one’s own Oscar submission creates the appearance of an unfair advantage,” said Cheryl Boone Isaacs, Academy president, in a statement.

In his own Facebook statement, Broughton said:

“I feel as though I’m the butt of a campaign to discredit a song, the nomination of which caught people by surprise… the campaigning on the other songs is epic compared to my simple email note. The marketing abilities of the other companies before and after the nomination far outstrip anything that this song was able to benefit from.”

“But most of all, I feel sullied, and I feel disappointed not only for me, but for Dennis Spiegel, who wrote a lovely (and although hardly anyone has noticed), truly ecumenical lyric which helped drive the story in the film, and for the unassailable Joni Eareckson, whose vocal on the song breathed real life into it.”

The movie ‘Alone Yet Not Alone’ is a Christian-themed historical drama, set in 1755 following one family as they settle within America’s new frontier. The family’s two daughters are taken captive during the French and Indian war. When they are separated from the rest of their family, the two daughters cling to their faith, and sing a family hymn – ‘Alone yet not alone’ – to get them through.

The now formerly Oscar nominated song, ‘Alone Yet Not Alone’ was performed by quadriplegic evangelical minister Joni Eareckson Tada, whose husband had to “push on her diaphragm while she recorded the…song to give her enough breath to hit the high notes,” according to Variety.

The remaining nominees in the category are:

• “Happy” from “Despicable Me 2”; Music and Lyric by Pharrell Williams
• “Let It Go” from “Frozen”; Music and Lyric by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez
• “The Moon Song” from “Her”; Music by Karen O; Lyric by Karen O and Spike Jonze
• “Ordinary Love” from “Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom”; Music by Paul Hewson, Dave Evans, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen; Lyric by Paul Hewson

You can listen to ‘Alone But Not Alone’ in the video below: