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Why India’s entries rarely get an Oscar nomination?

Rahman, incidentally, had been nominated for a Best Original Music Score Oscar in 2010 for another acclaimed Danny Boyle movie, “127 Hours”, but he lost the trophy to the music composers of “The Social Network”…reports Sourish Bhattacharyya

In the past 55 years in which India has been sending entries for the Best International Feature Film Oscar, it has been on just three occasions that the selected movies, despite some of them being critically acclaimed both in India and abroad, have made it to the nominations shortlist

A dismal record, if any, calling in question the selection process. The three films on this rather bald list are the Nargis-Sunil Dutt classic “Mother India” (1957), Mira Nair’s “Salaam Bombay” (1988) and Ashutosh Gowarikar’s Aamir Khan-starrer “Lagaan” (2001).

This year, the official selection — “Chhello Show”, Nalin Kumar Pandya a.k.a. Pan Nalin’s Gujarati film — again lost out to a strong field comprising, among others, the German World War I drama “All Quiet on the Western Front” and the Golden Globe winner, “Argentina, 1985” (the historical drama from Argentina around the fight waged by a group of lawyers against the South American’s nation’s last military junta).

The official selection is made by a committee appointed by the Film Federation of India, the apex body of film producers, cutting across languages and regional cinema industries. Is the committee selecting the right films? Moreover, is it backing the selected film with the kind of marketing budget that a pitch for the Oscars calls for?

“RRR”, which was the awards season favourite till it was snubbed by BAFTA and had to be content with just one Oscar nomination for “Naatu Naatu”, was backed by the theatrical distribution and marketing company, Variance Films, in its efforts and a war chest reportedly of Rs 80 crore.

Now, “RRR” can at least claim that “Naatu Naatu” is the first Indian song of an Indian film to be nominated for an Oscar (“Jai Ho” was an Indian song, yes, but “Slumdog Millionaire” wasn’t an Indian film).

Interestingly, “EO”, a Belgian film (and Cannes favourite) about the road trip of a donkey backed by Variance, has got a Best International Feature Film nomination.

The only films based out of India that have won Oscars are Sir Richard Attenborough’s “Gandhi” (which got for Bhanu Athaiya the Oscar for Best Costume) and Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire” (including the two that went to A.R. Rahman for Best Original Music Score and Best Song for “Jai Ho”).

Rahman, incidentally, had been nominated for a Best Original Music Score Oscar in 2010 for another acclaimed Danny Boyle movie, “127 Hours”, but he lost the trophy to the music composers of “The Social Network”.

This year, however, good news continues to pour in for Indian documentary filmmakers.

55 years, 3 nods: Why India’s official entries rarely get an Oscar nomination

Shaunak Sen’s “All That Breathes”, which had won the Golden Eye award for best documentary at Cannes 2022, has been nominated for Best Documentary Feature, an honour that went last year to Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh’s “Writing With Fire”.

Kartiki Gonsalves’s short film “The Elephant Whisperers”, the visually gripping and emotionally elevating story of Bomman, Bellie, and their child Raghu (an elephant calf), who live in the heart of the Theppakadu Elephant camp at the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu, has bagged a nomination in its category.

These two nominations will do a world of good to documentaries produced in India with unusual stories from the lives of ordinary people. They will spur more people to invest money on the right talent with ideas that could bring home an Oscar.

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Bhutan’s first entry into Oscar with best int’l feature nomination for ‘Lunana’

Along the way, the debut film of its director, Pawo Chonying Dorji, won the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film and the Best of the Fest at the 2020 Palm Springs International Film Festival in the US…reports Sourish Bhattacharyya

Even by the challenging standards of Bhutan, the landlocked Himalayan nation famous for its gorgeous topography, Lunane is remote.

It’s certainly not the place for a young, aspiring schoolteacher, growing up in Bhutan and nurturing the dream of migrating to Australia, to relocate for his mandatory year of service before getting his degree.

It is the story of this city-slicker, music-loving teacher, Ugyen Dorji, played with conviction by Sherab Dorji in ‘Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom’, which has become the second film from Bhutan to be nominated for the Best International Feature Film category in the 94th Academy Awards, which will be held on March 27 at the Dolby Theatre, Hollywood.

This inspirational, eye-moistening film, shot with the help of solar-powered batteries at one of the most inhospitable locations in the world, was rejected by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on a technicality last year, but Bhutan’s Ministry of Information and Communications persisted with it and its efforts have paid off.

Along the way, the debut film of its director, Pawo Chonying Dorji, won the Audience Choice Award for Best Feature Film and the Best of the Fest at the 2020 Palm Springs International Film Festival in the US.

At the 26th Film Festival della Lessinia in Italy, ‘Lunane’ was awarded the Lessinia d’Oro Award for Best Film and its lead actor, Sherab Dorji, brought home the Best Actor award from the Saint-Jean-de-Luz international film festival in France.

Now, it is up against this awards season’s runaway hit, the Japanese film ‘Drive My Car’ based on Haruki Murakami’s story, Italy’s ‘The Hand of God’ (another festival-circuit favourite showing on Netflix), Denmark’s ‘Flee’ and Norway’s ‘The Worst Person in the World’.

Will ‘Lunane’ and the travails of Ugyen Dorji as he accepts his situation and starts teaching children in a classroom they share with a yak, whose dung lights up the hamlet’s fires, tug at the heartstrings of the AMPAS members and make them cast their votes in the film’s favour? Or the earnestness of the village headman and the untutored performances of the angelic children swing their opinion?

‘Lunana: A Yak In The Classroom’ is the second Oscar entry from Bhutan, 23 years after the Buddhist lama Khyentse Norbu’s Tibetan-language drama, ‘The Cup’, made it to the long list in 1999. But it is the first film from Bhutan to be nominated for Best International Feature Film.

Commenting on the nomination, the film’s director, Pawo Chonying Dorji, said in an interview with ‘Variety’: “The shortlisting has meant so much because it’s a historic moment for our little Himalayan kingdom. It has captivated the whole country, from city dwellers to yak herders in the glacial mountains, from schoolchildren to Buddhist monks in isolated monasteries.”

What does the nomination mean for his nation? Dorji said in his ‘Variety’ interview: “They have all expressed how joyful they are in knowing that a story about our culture and people has been recognised by the world.”

Recalling how he went about his directorial debut, Dorji added: “I made this film with a crew who are mostly all amateurs, with a cast of yak herders who hadn’t even seen the world beyond their village. We shot the film in one of the most remote human settlements in the world using only solar energy to power our production.”

He concluded with a telling comment: “I think the shortlisting is a celebration of the possibilities of creativity and the art of filmmaking.” Anyone who sees the film will agree with the director.

It is a celebration of not only a heart-warming story set in a glacial, inhospitable setting, but also the ability of the human spirit to triumph over the most formidable challenges that life may throw at it.

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