Oscar votes counting begins

The voting has closed and the ballots are being counted. As the annual Oscar race enters its final stretch, the world remains in the dark as to who will take the big prizes at Sunday's ceremony. The only people who will know the results are Rick Rosas and Brad Oltmanns.

While Rosas and Oltmanns may barely be household names in their own households, their jobs at the accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCooper puts them in a unique and enviable position. It is their task to lead a six-person team of ballot counters, ploughing through nearly 6,000 votes from members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. At some stage today or tomorrow Rosas and Oltmanns will know the identity of this year's winners.

The trouble is that the accountants are not allowed to tell the rest of us. "I get a perverse thrill out of looking at people's Oscar predictions," admits Rosas, who has been in charge of Oscar ballots for the past five years. "One of the little rituals I have is that on Sunday morning I pick up [the paper] and read their Oscar predictions. I'm by myself when I do this, so I can read it, nod if they're right or shake my head and smile if they're wrong."

On the afternoon of March 5, Rosas and Oltmanns will travel separately under police escort to the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles for the ceremony. They will each carry an envelope containing the list of winners and take different routes to the venue.

This year it seems likely that Sunday's papers will be tipping Brokeback Mountain. Ang Lee's cowboy romance is the runaway favourite to beat Munich, Walk the Line, Crash and Good Night, and Good Luck in the hunt for the best film Oscar.

However, it is Rosas's policy not to play favourites. "I'm pretty neutral," he says. "It's been a great year for films. I saw all them and I liked all of them. It's certainly among the best [line-ups] of the five years I've been doing the job."