September 30, 2007...10:52 am
High Court To Decide Which Film We Send For Oscars……..
Eklavya for the Oscars
Vidhu Vinod Chopra production, Eklavya - The Royal Guard, has been chosen as India’s official entry to the Oscars this year.
The selection came as a surprise for people in the Indian film industry as most of them (ordinary people included) had expected ‘Chak De! India’ to be nominated for the Oscars. Bhavna Talwar, director and co-producer of the critically acclaimed Dharm, challenged the selection.
Her main contention is that jury that selected Eklavya had some members allegedly close to Chopra, so the selection could not have been fair. Bombay High Court on Saturday issued notices to Film Federation of India and others. Division bench of Chief Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice Dhananjay Chandrachud noted that prima facie the selection looked biased.
I wonder what has the judiciary to do with deciding a film for Oscars.There are other pressing issues that are of more importance and if the courts have to decide everything, then after every decision let the papers be sent to the court. Why wait for somebody to challenge? I wonder how can the court decide on this matter. Artistic expressions are a matter of opinion. What may seem to be bad movie, may actually be liked by people. Box office can definitely not measure the artistic value of a movie.
This is not the first time that oscar selection is mired in controvercy-
In 1999 filmmaker Shankar’s Jeans starring Aishwarya Rai and Prashant was chosen for the Academy Awards in place of Ram Gopal Varma’s critically and commercially acclaimed masterpiece Satya.
In 2003 Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas was prefered over Mani Ratnam’s soulful Kannathil Muthammitaal.
Last years selection’Paheli’ was a controversial decision too. Either we are getting used to challenging every decision made, or we are incapable of making fair decisions
10 Comments
September 30, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I think no matter the choice, not everyone will agree with it anyway. We all have a different sensitivity to things.
September 30, 2007 at 2:11 pm
This is an example of how a democracy works. The courts will probably decide on whether the process of selecting the movie for the Oscars was fair or not, rather than deciding which movie should go to the Oscars - which will follow from the former.
I personally did not like Eklavya and I do think it shouldn’t have been selected as India’s entry to the Oscars. I haven’t seen Dharm so can’t speak for it.
September 30, 2007 at 2:22 pm
September 30, 2007 at 3:41 pm
The court is duty-bound to respond to petitions, but I wonder if our Founding Fathers ever envisioned that the judiciary will one day need to get involved in life-or-death matters of such import, such as which movie gets nominated for this year’s Oscars!
And we wonder why judgements in “normal” cases take several years to be delivered and there is a perennial backlog?
September 30, 2007 at 4:46 pm
The funny part is that our people make such a big deal about the oscar nomination when we know that no indian movie has ever won the foriegn film oscar.
If we were winning the oscar every few years then maybe the hype could be understandable. Oh well…
October 1, 2007 at 4:45 am
We always have to wonder about their selections..
October 1, 2007 at 10:58 am
Dont you think that the common Janta should also be the part of the process. Because the movies that are nominated or win Oscars are not only critically acclaimed but are also popular in the masses.
By the way I think ‘Rang De..’ went t for Oscars last year not ‘Paheli’
October 1, 2007 at 1:18 pm
I hope what Amit says above is true!
October 1, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Welcome anandkrishna. You are right our Founding Fathers would have never envisioned that the judiciary will one day need to get involved in life-or-death matters of such import, such as which movie gets nominated for this year’s Oscars!.
You are right @amreekandesi // no indian movie has ever won the foriegn film oscar// but you never know nobody imagined we will win the T20 world Cup.
Ammar Rang -de-Basanti was not sent for Oscars. Paheli was the official entry and Munna Bhai was sent independently by Vidhu Vinod Chopra.
Thanks Rajiv, Arunk, and mahendra.
October 1, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Thanks Bharath.
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