‘Gully Boy’ makes Oscars entry from India

KOLKATA: Zoya Akhtar’s ‘

Gully Boy

’ was on Saturday selected as India’s Oscars entry for this year.

Director Aparna Sen, who chaired the jury, made the announcement in Kolkata in presence of other members, who were chosen by the Film Federation of India (FFI).

“The process was democratic. We took a long time and discussed the films threadbare. Each person was asked to write down three films in order of preference. After that we took a vote; we discussed the films and then we arrived at one film finally, and that is ‘Gully Boy’. The energy of the film was infectious. It will speak to the audience,” Sen said.

Initially, 28 films were in contest. However, one Gujarati movie — ‘Chaal Jeevi Laiye!’ — was disqualified and hence, the number came down to 27. Apart from three Bengali films (‘Nagarkirtan’, ‘Tarikh-A Timeline’ and ‘Konttho’), the other films were ‘Anandi Gopal’, ‘Andhadhun’, ‘And the Oscar Goes To...’, ‘Article 15’, ‘Baba’, ‘Badhaai Ho’, ‘Badla’, ‘Bandishala’, ‘Bulbul Can Sing’, ‘Dear Comrade’, ‘Ghode Ko Jalebi Khilane Le Ja Riya Hoon’, ‘Hellaro’, ‘Kesari’, ‘Kurukshetra’, ‘Mai Ghat: Crime No 103/2005’, ‘Olu’, ‘Oththa Seruppu Size 7’, ‘Pahuna: The Little Visitors’, ‘Super Deluxe’, ‘The Tashkent Files’, ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’, ‘Uyare’ and ‘Vada Chennai’.

The screening started on September 16 in Kolkata. FFI president Firdausul Hasan said the jury members finished watching the films a day in advance. “The selection of the Ranveer Singh-Alia Bhatt-starrer is a very good choice. We are thankful to the jury members for having done the job so meticulously. For the first time since the process started in 1957, the screening was held in Kolkata. We held it at Bijoli Cinema, an iconic single-screen theatre, with the aim of bringing back the glorious days of old halls,” Hasan said.

The jury members who attended the screening included scriptwriter Padmanabha Dasgupta, editor Sujay Dutta Ray, music director Debojyoti Mishra, directors Ashoke Viswanathan, Pratim D Gupta, Sumitra Bhave, Nagathalli Chandrasekhar and Rajendra Talak, producers Guneet Monga and Katragadda Prasad, artist Archan Trivedi, cinematographer Mahesh Aney and sound recordist N Harikumar.