I thought the only qualification was that the movie be in a foreign langauge?
The rules for that category are insanely complicated. There were many other foreign language films that were ineligible this year. The Academy is going to revise the rules.
Nope. The country in question has to submit the film. It's to avoid problems for artists in places like China where getting nominated against their will can be dangerous for them. The goverments of other countries have to submit one film. The U.S. obviously does not submit its own film in that category.