Laapataa out of Oscar race: Hansal Mehta slams FFI's ‘strike rate’; says THIS

On the one hand, where the Oscar 2025 got everyone excited, on the other hand, the news of Kiran Rao’s ‘Laapataa Ladies’ failing to make it to the final cut has raised eyebrows. Filmmaker Hansal Mehta and composer Ricky Kej also expressed their disappointment over the matter. They called out the Film Federation of India as Kiran Rao’s film failed to make the shortlist of the Best International Feature category. The ‘Omerta’ fame filmmaker Hansal sarcastically flagged FFI's dismal “strike rate and selection of movies year after year.”

Taking to his social media handle, late on Tuesday night, Hansal Mehta shared the shortlist of the Best International Feature category at the 97th Academy Awards. Along with the same, in the caption he wrote - “Film Federation of India does it again! Their strike rate and selection of films year after year is impeccable.”


Several X users agreed with Mehta and commented on his post. One of the netizens wrote “Indian films Laapata!” Another commented, “AWIAL will forever be a whatif,” referring to Payal Kapadia's ‘All We Imagine As Light.’ For the unversed, ‘All We Imagine As Light’ was considered by many to be a stronger contender for India at Oscars 2025, but FFI didn’t select the same.

Recalling how this isn’t the first time FFI didn’t consider a strong contender, netizens mentioned
About Shekhar Kapur's crime drama ‘Bandit Queen,’ which wasn't picked for the Oscars entry in 1995. “Bandit Queen's non selection was even more funny. Censors help up the movie from release hence could not qualify,” read the comment.

On the other hand, Grammy Award-winning composer Ricky Kej also took to his X handle to express his disappointment. He shared a couple of ‘Laapataa Ladies’ posters and wrote a long note. "#LaapataaLadies is a very well made, entertaining movie (I enjoyed it), but was absolutely the wrong choice to represent India for the best #InternationalFeatureFilm category. As expected, it lost. When are we going to realize.. year after year.. we are choosing the wrong films. There are so many excellent movies made, and we should be winning the #InternationalFeatureFilm category every year,” he wrote.


“Unfortunately we live in a ‘Mainstream Bollywood’ bubble, where we cannot look beyond films that we ourselves find entertaining. Instead we should just look for good films made by film-makers who are uncompromising in their art.. low budget or big budget.. star or no star.. just great artistic cinema. Below is the poster of #LaapataaLadies, I am sure most academy voting members dismissed the film just by looking at these,” Ricky concluded.