India’s Entry to this year’s Oscars fails to make a cut

Jallikattu, India’s official entry to this year’s Oscars, fails yet again.

No Indian film has ever won an Oscar. This year too India's official entry in the Best International Feature category at the 93rd Academy Awards, is out of the Oscars race.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) has announced that the Malayalam-language movie by Filmmaker Lijo Jose Pellissery's ‘Jallikattu’ has not been able to even make it to the shortlist of 15 features that will be vying for a spot in the final five.

Jallikattu, premiered at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival, is based on the short story Maoist by Hareesh and featured Antony Varghese, Chemban Vinod Jose, Sabumon Abdusamad and Santhy Balachandran.

The list of 15 this year include Thomas Vinterberg's "Another Round" (Denmark), Andrei Konchalovsky's "Dear Comrades!" (Russia), Agnieszka Holland's "Charlatan" (Czech Republic), "Quo Vadis, Aida?" (Bosnia and Herzegovina), "Two of Us" (France), "La Llorona" (Guatemala), "Better Days" (Hong Kong), "Sun Children" (Iran), "Night of the Kings" (Ivory Coast), "I'm No Longer Here" (Mexico), "Hope" (Norway), "A Sun" (Taiwan) and "The Man Who Sold His Skin" (Tunisia) and two documentaries -- "The Mole Agent" from Chile and "Collective" from Romania.

Films from 93 countries were eligible in the category. The 93rd Academy Awards, which were postponed from their usual February date due to the coronavirus pandemic, will be held on April 25, but the final nominations will be announced on March 15.

The last Indian film that made it to the final five in the Best International Feature category was Ashutosh Gowariker's ‘Lagaan’ in 2001, which featured among others Aamir Khan. ‘Mother India’ in 1958 and ‘Salaam Bombay’ in 1989 are the other two Indian movies to have made it to the top five.

If Indian films have not made the cut, Indians have. A.R Rahman and Gulzar won the award for Best Original Song for ‘Jai Ho’ in the movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, Resul Pookutty also won the Oscar for the Best Sound Mixing for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, A R Rahman again for the Best Original Score for Slumdog Millionaire and Bhanu Athaiya for the Best Costume Design for the film ‘Gandhi’ (1983).

Satyajit Ray, the acclaimed director from West Bengal, was given an honorary Oscar for his contribution to cinema in 1992.