And the entry for Oscars should be…

Add to that the welcome burst of Loins of Punjab Presents, The Namesake and Parzania, and you have many more films vying for attention. My exposure to regional cinema is limited, but I dare say that there are some worthy entrants in this section too. After all, our lone Oscar winner, Satyajit Ray (Bhanu Athaiya’s Oscar was for a foreign production), was applauded for his oeuvre in regional (Bengali) cinema (irrespective of welcome exceptions like Shatranj Ke Khiladi).

Personally, my vote would have gone to Gandhi My Father, simply because of its higher probability at winning a nomination — at least going by the track record of Oscar winners in the Best Foreign Film category. Its subject is something that kindles interest and there is a general awareness about Gandhi.

Besides, the premise of the film is interesting, and the Academy Award voters have always been a bit partial to biopics. While the technical finesse of Dharm and Eklavya may attract the attention of the voters, the Academy generally gives the winning nod to issue-based, serious and truly representative national cinema in the Best Foreign Film category. This pattern should have been taken into account while selecting an Indian film for the Oscars.

Nobody should be surprised at the personal nature of the ongoing fight between the finalist filmmakers and the kind of inane justifications being put forth by some jury members for this year’s choice. While some of Chopra’s critics have even questioned the worth of his body of work, others have smirked at debutant Talwar’s wherewithal to sustain the campaign needed to make it to the final five in the Best Foreign Film category.

But leave these issues aside. Let us delve, instead, into the root cause for this fracas: a faulty and highly questionable selection process often involving a second-rung jury largely comprising people ready to pander to the over-inflated egos of the big filmmakers. Some of our recent selections for the Oscars — which predictably didn’t make the big five — highlight this bias towards influential (read big and moneyed) producers: Devdas, Paheli and Rang De Basanti.

The solution to this does not lie in taking the matter to court. It calls, instead, for serious introspection among the various Indian movie-making bodies and the Film Federation of India. They need to evolve a more transparent and representative process. One option could be a secret ballot that involves voting by members of various regional film associations. However, if that sounds cumbersome, let us just send the National Award winner for Best Film as India’s official Oscar entry. Irrespective of the controversies that dog it every year, the National Film Awards still boasts of the most exhaustive process of film-judging in India and remains the most respected Indian film honour. The selection process is based on a diligent effort to sieve out the best in both Hindi and regional Indian cinema. In any case, this is a far better way of zeroing in on our Oscar entry than taking recourse to the courts.