PARIS: A biopic exploring the darker side of the late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent is to represent France as a possible contender in the Best Foreign Language Film category at next year’s Oscars.

“Saint Laurent,” directed by Bertrand Bonello, will be France’s nomination for the category, the country’s National Cinema Center said Monday.

Bonello’s film shows the designer, who pioneered tuxedos for women and ready-to-wear, cruising for sex and taking cocaine and pills.

Concentrating on a few episodes between 1967 and 1976, it vividly conjures up the hedonistic pre-AIDS days of the early 1970s, with wild parties and drug-taking in nightclubs — where Saint Laurent’s muses Betty Catroux and Loulou de la Falaise are on hand.

A team from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will watch all the selected films from each continent before announcing a shortlist of nine films in December. That will be whittled down to just five in January 2015.

The Oscars ceremony will take place in Los Angeles on Feb. 22, 2015, with nominations announced on Jan. 15.

France last won in the Best Foreign Language Film category in 1993 for the film “Indochine” starring Catherine Deneuve.