Mumbai: Bagging two awards, India has ended its dismal record at the Oscars as well as created history by winning the best original song award. Indian cinema has been sending films at the Oscars for over half a century, but this year's performance has been the best so far. Even though Pan Nalin's Gujarati film 'Chhello Show' could not make it to the 95th Oscar Awards race, it was perhaps for the first time that India had three films competing in different segments.
It was a proud moment for the country to win two awards at the 95th Oscar Awards ceremony. The song 'Naatu Naatu' from SS Rajamouli’s epic action drama 'RRR', is the first Indian song to win the best original song award while 'The Elephant Whisperers' won the best documentary short film award. Directed by Kartiki Gonsalves, 'The Elephant Whisperers' depicts human-animal bonding through the story of an orphan elephant and a couple. Here is India's performance at Oscars so far.
Pan Nalin directed 'Chhello Show' missed out the Oscars race at the last lap. The Gujarati-language film is about a nine-year-old boy, Samay (Bhavin Rabari), who is mesmerised by films and filmmaking and sets forth to become a filmmaker, unaware of the difficulties that await him. Interestingly, EO, a Belgian film (and Cannes favourite) about the road trip of a donkey backed by Variance, bagged the Best International Feature Film nomination. The final nomination list included All Quiet on the Western Front (Germany), Argentina, 1985 (Argentina), Close (Belgium), and The Quiet Girl (Ireland).
This apart, Shaunak Sen's 'All That Breathes', which won the Golden Eye award for best documentary at Cannes 2022, was nominated for Best Documentary Feature, but could not win the top prize.
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In 1958, Mehboob Khan's 'Mother India' was the first Indian film to be nominated in the best foreign language film the Oscars. The two other films that have been nominated in the best foreign film category are Mira Nair's 'Salaam Bombay' (1988) and Ashutosh Gowarikar's Aamir Khan-starrer 'Lagaan' (2001). In 1992, legendary Bengali director Satyajit Ray was the first and only Indian to bag the honourary academy award.
The entries for Oscars are selected by a committee appointed by the Film Federation of India, the apex body of film producers. Questions are being raised as to whether right films are selected by the committee and whether it is supporting the selected film with the kind of marketing budget that the Oscars calls for.
This season's all-time favourite, 'RRR' had to be content with just one Oscar nomination for 'Naatu Naatu'. Backed by the theatrical distribution, a reportedly Rs 80 crore have been spent on its promotions. The film can now claim the credit that 'Naatu Naatu' is the first Indian song of an Indian film to win an Oscar. Earlier, 'Jai Ho' was an Indian song, but 'Slumdog Millionaire' wasn't an Indian film.
Films based out of India to win Oscars are namely Sir Richard Attenborough's 'Gandhi', for which Bhanu Athaiya won the Best Costume award and Danny Boyle's 'Slumdog Millionaire', where AR Rahman won Best Original Music Score and Best Song for 'Jai Ho'. In 2010, Rahman had been nominated for a Best Original Music Score Oscar in another Danny Boyle movie, '127 Hours', but he did not win the award.
