Dismal record of India's official entries at Oscars

Over a centaury old Indian cinema is sending films at the Oscars for more than 50 years. The country, however, is yet to bring the trophy home. With Pan Nalin's Gujarati film Chhello Show losing out in the 95th Oscar Awards race, India stands still at the two decades old record of 3 nods so far.

Mumbai: Chhello Show, India's official entry in the International Feature category at 95th Oscars failed to make the cut in the final five. 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 have made it to the nominations shortlist. A dismal record for a country with a century old film industry.

Chhello Show is out of the race but there is still much to celebrate as it is perhaps for the first time that three films from the country are competing in different segments. Before the winners will be announced in March at the 95th Annual Academy Award, here's a bird's-eye view of India's performance at Oscars so far.

• Oscar nominated Indian films:

For over a half a centaury, hyped-Indian films, return home without making it to the nominations list. The three films on this rather bald list that managed to bag Oscar nod are the Nargis-Sunil Dutt classic Mother India (1957), Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay (1988) and Ashutosh Gowarikar's Aamir Khan-starrer Lagaan (2001).

• Chhello Show out of Oscar race:

Directed by Pan Nalin, Chhello Show is out of Oscars race. It is a Gujarati-language coming-of-age drama about a nine-year-old boy, Samay (Bhavin Rabari), who's ensnared by the magic of cinema and sets forth to fulfil his 35mm celluloid dreams. 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. Other films in the final nomination lis are All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany), Argentina, 1985 (Argentina), Close (Belgium), and The Quiet Girl (Ireland).

• How India's official entries are selected for Oscars:

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 snubbed; Naatu Naatu first Indian song at Oscar:

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.

• Films based out of India at the Oscars:

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.

• Documentaries -- India's ray of hope at Oscars:

This year, however, good news continues to pour in for Indian documentary filmmakers. 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 in the right talent with ideas that could bring home an Oscar.