Without that clause the implication is that "foreign" is as used for the Academy Awards, wherein the category is a film not spoken in English.

I certainly didn't see it like that. The Academy Awards are American, and for them a foreign language is a language that isn't English, sure. But I don't see why it should be the same for me. I don't think Academy Awards first when I think of films.

I'm German, and for me English is one example of a foreign language. And I read it that way when it was first posted, thinking about what would be my favorite English language movie, which is very hard to decide upon.