Even as Kiran Rao's Laapataa Ladies missed the Oscars shortlist for the International Feature Film Category, the Guneet Monga-produced short film, 'Anuja,' has given us hope as it has now advanced to the next round after competing with 180 films.
However, the internet was divided on the subject with many well-known filmmakers criticising the process by which films are chosen to be presented at an international level. For instance, filmmaker Hansal Mehta and composer Ricky Kej called out the Film Federation of India after Laapata Ladies which was India's official entry for Oscars 2025, failed to make the cut.
Mehta sarcastically flagged FFI's dismal “strike rate and selection of movies year after year.”
Likewise, if one were to skim through various research papers and publications penned by the academia on 'India's film selections for the Oscars,' it wouldn't be hard to tell that they have been severely criticised.
For instance, Abhijit Ghosh from Lovely Professional University writes, "India makes around 2,000 movies per annum, which is almost half of the total movies made around the world. In spite of being the highest producer of films in the world, no Indian movie has yet won the much-coveted award."
His paper studies the selection procedure for the submission, its history, disappointments and the reasons for the failure of Indian cinema at the Oscars.
‘Gandhi’, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and ‘Life of Pi’ in which Indians won Oscars, were actually perceived, produced and directed by non-Indians and most of us celebrated as if this was a kind of victory for the Indian Movie Industry, but actually none of these were completely Indian Movies.
Only five Indians have won Oscars so far, Bhanu Athaiya, Resul Pookutty, AR Rahman, Gulzar and Satyajit Ray.
Ray received an honorary award in 1991 and all others have worked in the movies made by foreign production houses and filmmakers," writes Ghosh.
"A shocking statistic is that out of 57 Indian films officially sent to the Oscars, 21 have been rejected due to plagiarism allegations (the story is copied or familiar to already existing stories which naturally brings down the score). This blame is nothing new. Today’s filmmakers are master copycats and rarely create anything original. As a result, many of our entries are marked with plagiarism and many films get low scores due to this factor. ‘Barfi’, ‘Eklavya’, and ‘Heena’ were some pictures which did not make the nominations because of possible plagiarism allegations," he adds.
Experts also cite the problem of "budgeting" as one of the reasons why good films fail to make the cut, right at the stage of nominations. For International Feature Film Nominations, the Oscars require a minimum of 15 shows across film festivals and if on average a single show costs $2000, then 15 turns into a whopping $30000.
Typically, many international films run as many as 100 shows across festivals but "good" Indian films lack this kind of budget.
For instance, the Marathi film ‘Shwaas’ was India’s official entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars in 2004, however, it had to drop out of the race due to a lack of funds.
"Amitabh Bachchan donated Rs. 1 Lakh for the movie, while the Govt of Goa contributed 21 lakh and Govt of Maharashtra gave 15 lakh rupees. The movie ran 14 shows during the Pre-Oscar bid and narrowly made it out of the final five. Had the movie got 50 shows- it would have got a slot in the nominations and could have had the chance of winning," says Ghosh.
The Oscars or the Academy Awards, are the awards that are presented for the technical, creative and artistic merit in the movie industry annually. The elite awards are given across 24 categories involving the best film directors, producers, actors, technicians and others associated with the movie.
It's a matter of great honour to win the award or even get a nomination. Every year, the Film Federation of India selects one released movie of that year to represent India at the Oscars and submit it to the International Feature Film Award Committee in Los Angeles, the body that chooses the five nominations per category for the much-desired film award in the global cinema.
Meanwhile, actor Shahana Goswami's film Santosh has inched closer to being nominated for the International Feature Film category at the 97th Oscars. It is an international co-production of the UK, India, Germany and France and is the UK's official entry to the Oscars. Upon having been shortlisted, Santosh will compete with 14 other films to get an Oscar nomination.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Tuesday announced the shortlists in 10 Oscar categories for the 97th Academy Awards.
The announcement included movies that are in consideration for the following categories: documentary feature film, documentary short film, international feature film, makeup and hairstyling, music (original score), music (original song), animated short film, live-action short film, sound and visual effects. Emilia Pérez, The Apprentice, Dune: Part Two, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Nosferatu, Wicked, Challengers, The Wild Robot, Gladiator II and Blitz were among the films that were shortlisted in several categories.