Gully Boy is India’s official entry to the Oscars

The rappers of

Gully Boy

defeated 27 other entries, including Kanttho, Nagarkirtan and Tarikh, to make their way to the Oscars. This was for the first time that the Film Federation of India held official Oscars selection process in Kolkata.
The screenings started on September 16 and ended on Saturday afternoon. Aparna Sen, chairperson of the jury committee, said, “The process was very democratic. We took a long time discussing the films threadbare and each jury member was asked to nominate three films in order of preference. After that, we took a vote. We discussed the films and finally, decided on one film and that’s Gully Boy. The energy of the film was infectious. It speaks to the audience.”

Besides Aparna, the other members of the jury committee were Padmanabha Dasgupta, Sujay Dutta Ray, Debojyoti Mishra, Ashoke Viswanathan, Pratim D Gupta, Guneet Monga, Katragadda Prasad, Sumitra Bhave, Nagathalli Chandrasekhar, Rajendra Talak, Archan Trivedi, Mahesh Aney and N Harikumar.
A total of 28 films are in contention. A Gujarati movie was disqualified, so it came down to 27. The Hindi films vying for the Oscars nomination were Badhaai Ho, Andhadhun, Article 15, Uri: The Surgical Strike, Badla, Kesari, The Tashkent Files and Gully Boy.