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The debate around whether the Film Federation of India made a mistake by selecting Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies as India’s official entry for the Academy Awards continues, with Oscar-winning producer stressing that it’s important for only those films with US distribution to be sent as entries. Laapataa Ladies was competing for selection against Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light, which became the first Indian film in decades to be selected in the official competition category at the Cannes Film Festival; it ended up winning the prestigious Grand Prix awards. It also made the France shortlist, but ultimately didn’t make the cut.
In an interview with Mid-Day, Guneet said that the biggest mistake that the FFI makes is to choose what they feel is the best film of the lot, as opposed to picking one that might actually stand a chance to score a nomination. No Indian film has been nominated in the Best International Feature category at the Oscars since Lagaan in 2001. While that film’s star, Aamir Khan, is a producer on Laapataa Ladies, and has experience mounting an Oscars campaign, the film itself doesn’t have an American distributor attached. All We Imagine As Light, on the other hand, will be distributed in the US by Janus Films.
She said, “I say this to everybody, if India has to choose a film for the Oscars, it’s very important that you have an American distributor. The more solid American distributor you have, your journey there becomes easier. We can do it on our own, of course. We can spend loads of money, hire publicists… It’s very hard. Even Elephant Whisperers, I was there for over a month… I’m in awe of the big system that they’ve built there, the whole world shows up and puts their money, time, and energy into it.”
When it was mentioned that Lagaan is the last Indian film to have scored a nomination, she said, “Because Sony Pictures Classics distributed it. We miss this point. To every person, and to every journalist, I want to say, ‘Please send films that have US distributors’. Netflix was there on Period. End of Sentence, and Elephant Whisperers. They have the mechanism, they know the work… HBO came on board for Shaunak Sen’s film, All that Breathes, and they were running the campaign. What I’m trying to say is, nominations are a very, very big deal. To win is out of a dream. The toughest part of the Oscars is to go from shortlist to nomination. There is work that needs to be done, which we don’t understand. The committee here constantly feels that we should send our best film, as if they are giving the award. But you have to send a film that has American distribution, period. It’s an American award.”
Guneet has had over a decade of experience mounting Oscars campaigns. Her efforts paid off a couple of years ago, when she won an Oscar for producing the documentary short Elephant Whisperers. In the same year that she won, the film RRR won in the Best Original Song category. Guneet hailed the team for playing the bigger game, and for raising ‘huge capital’ and supporting their campaign by themselves. In a recent interview, FFI President Ravi Kottakara explained the decision to select Laapataa Ladies as India’s official entry to Oscars, and said that All We Imagine As Light felt like a ‘foreign film’.
All We Imagine As Light is set for an India-wide release in November. Laapataa Ladies debuted theatrically earlier this year, after premiering at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival. It garnered greater popularity after landing on Netflix, although it was moderately successful at the box office as well.
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