A recent Instagram post from Deepika Padukone criticising the Oscars got global attention, but few seem to have noticed it also revealed just how clueless many big-name Bollywood celebrities like her are.
In the short video clip, Padukone called out the Academy Awards for repeatedly snubbing Indian films and talent, using a montage of titles such as All We Imagine As Light, Laapataa Ladies, Tumbbad, and The Lunchbox to illustrate her point. While her suggestion that the popular awards ceremony has consistently overlooked Indian cinema may appear valid, a closer look shows that she is blaming the wrong people.
Each country is allowed to submit one film into the Best International Feature category at the Oscars – and India consistently gets it wrong. Whether it is backing a sub-standard effort fronted by a star, submitting a copied production, or overlooking far more deserving films, the fault lies squarely with the Indian selection jury.
The films in her montage offer the perfect snapshot of how absurd the country’s official choices have been.
Globally acclaimed drama The Lunchbox would have been an outstanding submission and may well have secured an Oscar nomination, if not a win. The 2013 romance, headlined by Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur, connected with non-Asian audiences in a way few other Hindi films have managed. It received a standing ovation at Cannes and rave reviews across the board. Yet, instead of submitting The Lunchbox, the jury chose a microbudget Gujarati film, The Good Road – a selection that, unsurprisingly, attracted little attention and failed to make the shortlist.
In 2012, the jury submitted Barfi – despite the fact that it had shamelessly lifted scenes from several well-known films, including The Notebook. The following years Read More….
