The only way to hope for a shot at the Academy Awards is to make India matter in the eyes of Uncle Oscar as a “country that makes good movies”.
As always, there was this dim hope that we’d make it to the shortlist, at least. After all, we’d picked a really deserving film, one that — narratively speaking — leapt out of the box like a rampaging bull. Plus, the Oscar voting committee has become far more ethnically diverse. But I think we all knew, in our hearts, that this was all it would be: a dim hope. If Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Jallikattu had indeed ended up in that list, it would have been more of a fluke. This has nothing to do with the merits of this marvellously directed movie. It also has little to do with the admittedly important fact that — after a film is submitted for the Best International Film Oscar — we do not (or perhaps cannot, financially speaking) campaign hard enough. It has, I think, more to do with the perception of India as a “country that makes good movies”.
All ‘good filmmakers’ are not equal
Everyone knows that — like in every awards set-up — it is just not possible to read every book submitted (in the case of, say, the Man Booker) or listen to every album put out (the Grammys). Most voters, therefore, are likely to go for “names”. There was a period in the nineties when almost every year a Pedro Almodóvar film would make it to the shortlist. Of course, this has a little to do with the merits of this marvellous director (and god knows I worship his work). But it’s also that he had been canonised by the time: by festivals, by international critics, and most importantly, the American paying public who routinely made Almodóvar films among the highest-grossing at the box office. So, as an Oscar voter, when you have a hundred films you need to watch and don’t have two hundred hours, an Almodóvar becomes a safe bet. “I haven’t yet watched it, but it’s an Almodóvar. It has to be good, right?”
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Baradwaj Rangan 
vijay Duraiswamy
February 10, 2021
Hey BR,
I agree with you on the aspect of “not all countries are created equal”, we just don’t make enough offbeats to drown out the noise from mainstream “Xollywood” ( X replaced with K,T ,N ,B etc)..
I dont agree with you that money / follow up for campaigning the movie is a factor ( vetrimaran tried it and went down fighting).. look at 2019 nominees : Korean , Spanish, north Macedonian ( I had to google where Macedonia actually was & im sure they didn’t come all way to canvas for the film ) The Hollywood press has gotten more global , ethnically diverse enough that word of mouth still works better than targeted marketing
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Srinivas R
February 10, 2021
I think one of the factors is also that, India announces its official entry way too late. The best agents are already picked up and too little time for campaigning. Vetrimaran mentioned it in your interview and Guneet Monga also mentioned in one of her interview.
Actually, would love to see you interviewing Guneet Monga. A woman handling diverse roles in the industry.
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Satya
February 10, 2021
The other way out is to keep doing what we do and say we don’t really care about the Oscars, but then, we wouldn’t have this annual ritual of hand-wringing, would we?
Right. At least Oscars are avoidable. What to say about our NFA? It is as good as Indumati’s Swayamvara. When she passes through the kings with the garland, it felt though as if she was walking with a lamp in a dark room full of pillars. When she approached a pillar, it would shine. When she left, that pillar would languish in darkness cribbing and seething. We get to see and hear similar stuff from our actors and filmmakers just before and after the NFA announcements.
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krishikari
February 10, 2021
Some people care about the Oscars. Well, let them care and let them hand wring away. I think Indian films can only be good if they are made if they are made with authenticity and not cater to a global audience. We are unique in our tastes and also diverse even within the country, Marathi, Tamil and Malayalam films are so different from each other. (We are a country that makes good movies, we just make more bad ones.)
I think Jallikattu was a masterpiece but it was definitely not universally appealing. It’s fantastic that we have space for such films to be made, and even more fantastic that it is available on a large enough platform for global viewing even though the film was made with local sensibilities.
Hopefully, Koozhangal will get seen too.
I would love to see the Oscars become eclipsed by some other kind of awards show. It is a dinosaur that lived long past it’s extinction date and still taking up all the oxygen.
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Jallikattu lover
February 10, 2021
Had to comment here to let you all know that in spite of what happened with Jallikattu’s oscar race, I ain’t changing my name.
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Who Am I?
February 10, 2021
Is holding a movie which was made and released 20 years ago to today’s standards a new trend?
At least, I understood the questions asked to Rangaraj Pandey regarding Nerkonda Paarvai even though a couple of them were downright silly not to mention expecting everybody should come with the exact same conclusion as the interviewer.
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H. Prasanna
February 10, 2021
@Krishikari and Satya I agree. I was also thinking along those lines when I read this. We have to come up with an Indian Oscars, critics awards or something celebrating celebrity (for commercial value and reach) and cinema (for the sake of cinema).
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Niikhil
February 10, 2021
Our Oscars jury have been known to teeter between the pragmatic choice and the absolute choice between years, ultimately being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Like Gully boy. Court over The Lunchbox, (theoretically the best bet even backed by Sony Classics). And, now Jallikattu over the international hit The Disciple. Did Jallikattu even have a corresponding English title such as Bull Run?
Looking at the shortlist, looks it’s a safe bet to go for a film that starts with ‘The’ 😜. Lilo Jose is a rockstar director and totally deserves the blowup this got. But, I didn’t even know his next film is out. And, it’s premiering not at Locarno, or Berlin or Toronto.
But, in IFFK. I rest my case.
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FuriAce
February 10, 2021
“This is not just about making that one movie that might win, fluke or otherwise. It is about a movement to make Indian cinema matter in their eyes. It is about creating a roster of Indian filmmakers who will be instantly considered “auteurs” by the international community.”
IMO – this is the real key. We don’t do our credibility any favors either with the choice of movies we send – Gully Boy, Barfi, Jeans FFS. I’ve watched a lot of the eventual finalists and winners and they are worlds ahead both in terms of content and form. I feel like we now have a generation of filmmakers (and growing) across India creating good movies. We need to support and encourage them. Maybe in a few years’ time we have a breakthrough.
Jallikattu didn’t make the final list, but hopefully it started (or added to) a shift in how Indian films and film makers are viewed.
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Satya
February 10, 2021
Prasanna: We do have some awards like the Filmfare which operate on a national level. But, I think, we are looking for encouragement and motivation, something that actually counts as an achievement. Look at the Academy Awards – people are happy to just call it Oscar, go against type to just bag a nomination (even RDJ did a Hank Palmer in The Judge which was right in the middle of his star vehicles of MCU and Sherlock Holmes) and one nomination, you get “The Academy Award Nominee” in credits every time for life in every film (non MCU though). We need our people to take that one award this seriously. And in today’s times, how big the standards must we set and execute for that to happen here in India?
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moonraker
February 11, 2021
Who cares about the Oscars? Just because they are a white man’s award we should not feel inferior to them. Our Pan Parag Manikchand awards are much better! We are simply The Best.
With such an attitude, the only thing that baffles me is why we bother sending an official entry to the Oscars every year.
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krishna prasad
February 11, 2021
Just to digression bit. Deny al we may, but it’s a fact that we ( mean Indians ) still look up to the west. Nothing wrong in bettering ourselves r our standards in whatever field, but it’s a fascinating psychological thing the way we look for recognition. The way we ( mean South Indians) look up to Bollywood for recognition s also similar. Very difficult to make movies that would cater to a universal audience and yet retain the rootedness and Ethos of a state/ community/ culture r whatever its trying to portray.
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Enigma
February 11, 2021
Hi BR, interesting that you mention that a movie’s oscar nomination chances might improve if it had got some sort of prior recognition at a major film festival (Cannes, Venice, Berlin etc.). I was just curious to know, how does a movie get recognition at a major international film festival. Do the makers need to lobby, like they have to do for the Oscars? Also, I may be wrong here, I don’t think any Indian movie has been recognised at any of these majors (i.e. won a Palme D’Or or Golden Bear). Maybe our filmmakers goal should be to win a Palme D’Or or Golden Bear, Oscar recognition may subsequently follow.
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MANK
February 11, 2021
i thought this one had a real chance, because it’s so cinematic and visual, with a very universal theme. Not that i care about the Oscars, i stopped caring almost a decade ago, but it would have put a brilliant filmmaker like Lijo on the word map.
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therag
February 11, 2021
Correct me if I’m wrong but the Oscars are basically a glorified auction system with Oscars sold to the highest bidder (the bidders being the people campaigning for Oscars). These campaigners can be anyone: American studios, Foreign studios, US Govt etc. As long as the Oscars and the economy on which it rests (Hollywood Press + other subsidiary interests in LA) comes out green, they don’t care where the bidders come from.
Sure, the Oscars are rarely awarded to a downright incompetent film but that is a function of the economic might of Hollywood, which ensures a steady supply of films and talent from the world over. The success of Iranian films over the last 2 decades is not only because they make great films (which they do), but that the bidder was the US Govt for geopolitical reasons.
Going through the Best Foreign Language Film award winners, very few of those were real box-office hits outside of their countries (in most cases, even in the country of origin). BR’s example of the Mexican trio also breaks because Hollywood used their talent to make very American films. Nobody knows or cares about Y’Tu Mama Tambien. One can argue that HWood tapped that talent in ways the Mexican industry couldn’t, but the fact remains that their popular films are distinctly HWood blockbusters.
I have yet to see any evidence that success in Cannes, Venice etc provides any economic advantage to the local filmmaker. Note, I’m not saying they are to be ignored, but the kind of films that do well in these festivals are guaranteed to flop. Pivoting to produce more films of the kind that can succeed at the festivals and the Oscars will be incredibly detrimental to the Indian Film Industry IMHO.
Indian Film Industry has a good product. They have to figure out how to disrupt the current market and push their product across the globe not through intermediaries such as film festivals who have their own vested interests but directly to the consumer. More importantly, they should not cede ground in the local market. Achieving that when the Bollywood top brass and Indian film media seems to venerate these festivals even at the expense of the local industry is another question though.
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moonraker
February 12, 2021
In India, we view cinema as entertainment, not art, and that is why, to me, our films will never become world-class enough to win international accolades anywhere. It is more a cultural issue than anything else.
But what saddens me is, we seem to be ignoring our local culture. I am a Bengali, and my knowledge of Indian cinema is mainly limited to Bengali and Hindi films. What I have seen in both these categories are films completely disconnected taste-wise from the majority of the ticket-buying public, and instead focusing on either pseudo-intellectual rubbish which appeals to a few urban kids, or remakes of South potboilers.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find Bengali movies showing characters going to the markets, doing chores at home, paying bills, everything normal Bengalis do. Instead, it’s either song-and-dance piffle which is completely alien to Bengali culture, or shallow depictions of young urban relationships. How Bengali film industry people put food on the table is a mystery to me, so pathetic are the budgets and box-office returns. As for Hindi, the steady decline of single-screen theaters is evidence enough of the alienation of the masses by the movies.
My question is, why this arrogance? You make stuff which is as likely to receive global acclaim as me becoming US President, and yet, you copy Western style-filmmaking to impress a few urban kids?! People here have commented that Oscars don’t matter. Fair enough. But what about local people? Anurag Kashyap is hailed by the media as some kind of auteur, yet has never won a single major international award I am aware of, and has never delivered a box-office hit in his career! Ditto Bengal’s Rituparno Ghosh.
So my request to the media and Indian filmmakers is – be humble, don’t chase things you don’t deserve, instead identify your core audience and be honest to them. At least that will bring you respect from your own people.
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Alex John
February 12, 2021
“Plus, the Oscar voting committee has become far more ethnically diverse.’
I really don’t think having an ethnically diverse committee changes anything wrt a westerners perspective on the orient. I can’t imagine a black American’s attitude towards a country like ours being vastly different from his/her white counterparts..
They expect more focused, territorial social commentaries from a film from India, like poverty, minority-struggles etc. , rather than the more wide-angled thoughts that Jallikkattu offers ( I have heard about an Oscar committee member blatantly declaring they wouldn’t even consider a film from India if doesn’t show our deprivation. Couldn’t find anything about it on the internet, though).
I believe we should follow the South Korean filmmakers who chose the wise strategy of bombarding the west with their films, good or bad, and building an undeniable cultural foundation before going for the biggies like Oscar. This is, I believe, a much better choice than lobbying, considering the rather stolid cultural attitude the west has towards the third-world countries.
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ashwhatsfilmosophy
August 8, 2021
@baradwajrangan sir, great fan of your art. One of the very few critics who I believe disprove Flaubert’s quote on ‘failed artists’.
Couldn’t decide where to first-post, but this Oscar hype caught my eye…
Are the Academy Awards relevant anymore with their capitalist extravagance that no self respecting indie art filmmaker would indulge in…
The price of promoting films would require many times the budget of the movie itself. Plus like you said, when the viewer judge panel has to watch so many hours of cinema, they’ll go for the big names. So how to create that? Film Festivals too have the scaled down same issues.
If only the indian industry underwent a renaissance, like the French waves, society shifts from Masala star driven commercial crap…
A lot of ifs. Sigh. My views are usually dismissed out of hand due to my age (not even legally adult lol) but I hope this blog acts as a forum to gain and share diverse perspectives and opinions…
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