Indian film RRR was submitted for Oscar nomination under multiple categories. (Photo: AP)The Oscar season is finally here. The Oscar nominations list was unveiled on Tuesday, and India scored three nominations at the 95th Academy Awards.
SS Rajamouli’s RRR, which now has a massive fan following in US, managed to get only one nomination in the Best Original Song category for “Naatu Naatu”. The film did not score any nomination in the Best Picture and Best Director categories.
Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes scored a nomination in the Best Documentary Feature Film category. Kartiki Gonsalves’ 41-minute film The Elephant Whisperers also scored a nomination in the Best Documentary Short category.
Michelle Yeoh starrer Everything Everywhere All at Once became the most nominated film bagging 11 nominations. All Quiet on the Western Front and The Banshees of Inisherin both scored nine nominations, followed by eight nominations for Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis. Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans managed to score seven nods.
This year, ten films were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar. These include All Quiet on the Western Front, Avatar: The Way of Water, The Banshees of Inisherin, Elvis, Everything Everywhere All At Once, The Fabelmans, Tár, Top Gun Maverick, Triangle of Sadness and Women Talking.
RRR lyricist Chandrabose expressed his happiness and gratitude as his music piece Naatu Naatu bagged an Oscar Nomination in the Best Original song category. Talking to ANI, Chandrabose expressed his happiness and stated, “I will not let the success get to my head. Seeing the RRR casting list on the Oscar list feels very great and proud.” He further said, “I never dreamt this much height in the wildest dreams. Thanks to Keeravani for giving songs and Rajamouli”.
While all the attention was on RRR and even the documentaries All That Breathes and The Elephant Whisperers, there's another reason for Indian film fans to celebrate Tuesday's Oscar nominations. Tell It Like a Woman, a film that features Jacqueline Fernandez in the ensemble cast, will compete in the Best Original Song category with RRR.
While speaking with Variety, Austin Butler, who has won an Oscar nom for his portrayal of Elvis Presley, got candid about his prep for the role: "The training is different because I didn’t have much time. I wanted to do something very different with what I chose for “Dune.” I’m not going to give anything away, but I wanted to try to push myself in a very different direction and lean into the curiosity or fun of that. It’s a different type of physical training, as well as vocal training."
Elvis star Austin Butler reacted to his Oscar nomination in the Best Actor category. While speaking with Variety, the actor shared, "No, I set my alarm wrong, or something. So I woke up to about 20 missed calls from my publicist and agent manager. They woke me up. It also takes me a while to wake up in the morning, so I still felt as though I was dreaming. It’s going to take me a while to process."
"We were screaming with sheer joy because we don’t want my love Jamie or Stephanie to be one or the other. Why should they be one or the other when they both deserve to be up there? So when it came out, I was like, ‘Yes!’," Michelle Yeoh told Variety after she got to know that not only she, but her co-stars from the film Ke Huy Quan, Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis, had also received nominations in Best Supporting Actor and Actress categories. Yeoh herself has scored a nom in Best Actress category.
Film critic of LA Times Justin Chang tweeted, "Terrible decision to leave out DECISION TO LEAVE. #Oscars2023." Decision to Leave is a South-Korean romantic mystery movie helmed by Park Chan-wook. It had garnered rave reviews from critics upon its release.
The Elephant Whisperer director Kartiki Gonsalves said in a statement, “It’s such an honour to have an Indian Indigenous documentary from the heart of South India acknowledged across the world. Thank you, members of the Academy for nominating The Elephant Whisperers. I am very thankful to the wonderful team at Netflix for believing in the power of this truly unique family story which showcases the lovely sacred bond between man and animal. The Elephant Whisperers is a hopeful story of respect for and cooperation with nature in an era rife with conflict and denial of the threats to our beautiful planet. We hope this film helps create more awareness, empathy, and connection to elephants and other living beings that we share our spaces with. It took five years to make my debut documentary The Elephant Whisperers, a long personal journey from the place I call home, that wouldn’t have been possible without the support of the Kattunayakan Community, who opened their hearts and trusted us with their unique experiences and a pathway ahead. On behalf of Bomman, Bellie and our beautiful elephant friends Raghu and Ammu, we are thrilled to receive this great honour!”
"I thought it (India getting a nomination) would start ten years back. It's 12 years late. This should happen every year from India because we are a country of 1.3 billion people and there are amazing geniuses in every aspect of filmmaking. Most of the movies don't enter the competition. At least they (makers of RRR) had the thing to put it out there. If nobody knows your movie, who is going to vote for it. I wish them the very best and I want them to win," AR Rahman told reporters at a song launch in Mumbai.
Singer Mano shared with indianexpress.com, 'MM Keeravani and I worked under iconic musician Chakravarthy together, and from then on we knew that he will become a trendsetter in the Telugu film industry and do great things, which has come true now. I absolutely believe that Naatu Naatu will win the Oscar for us. I am so happy for my dear friend. He is a very soft-natured person, who doesn't have any airs about him. He is like his melodies. All these years and his hard work, Keeravani deserves it.'
RRR team's Twitter handle shared a finger-crossed emoji ahead of the Oscars nominations tonight. The film's well-wishers rushed to the comments section to share best wishes for the crew.
Remember when The Hollywood Reporter's writer Borys Kit had captured the meeting of RRR director SS Rajamouli and The Fabelmans filmmaker Steven Spielberg while on their way to cast their votes for this year's Oscars? Take a look at the iconic snap here:
"I am definitely rooting for it being an Indian film and more so, a South Indian film. The common notion is to associate Bollywood with Indian cinema, but there is more to Indian cinema. We have the Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil and Kannada film industries, among others," Malavika said while speaking to India Today about RRR competing in the Oscar race.
In an earlier interview with News18, filmmaker Shaunak Sen, whose documentary All That Breathes is eyeing an Oscar nomination, had opened up about his reaction regarding the film making it to the Academy's shortlist: "My initial reaction was, relief! It came at around 2am our time and it was an entirely and utterly sleepless night but apart from that one is utterly beside oneself, overtaken by joy and thrill because the film took a large part of all our lives. I think initially it is just the phone calls to all the crew members and it is very jubilant. I always get a bit suspicious of happiness, so for me it is often the calculus of what is to be done now for the next step."
In a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter, SS Rajamouli had commented about RRR not being selected as India's official entry for this year's Oscars: “Yeah, it is disappointing. But we are not the kind of people who would sit and brood about why it didn’t happen. What has happened has happened, and we should go forward with it.”
The filmmaker said that he was happy for Chhello Show being shortlisted as it is also an Indian film. “But I am happy because it is also an Indian film and it has also been shortlisted for Oscars. I’m quite happy for it.” But he mentioned that “everyone knew” that RRR “had a much bigger chance” at the Oscars.
After the wild reception of Rajamouli's RRR in the West, the director has expressed his desire to make a movie in Hollywood. While speaking to Entertainment Weekly, the director said, "I think it is the dream of every filmmaker across the world to make a film in Hollywood. I am no different. I’m open to experimentation.”