This story is from September 27, 2022
It is known that the Indian Academy jury has denied sending SS. Rajamouli's ‘RRR’ to the Academy Award nominations under the 'Best International feature film category' this year due to reasons best they know despite‘RRR’ having been winning American moviegoers' hearts like never before.
In this context, let us look into some of the Indian submissions to Oscars in the past from each Indian language and look into what they have achieved so far at the Oscars...!
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As of 2022, India has reportedly sent over 54 films to the Academy competitions but none has won the award. Of them, 32 are from the Mumbai-based Hindi Film Industry that includes ‘Mother India’, ‘Madhumati’, ‘Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam’, ‘The Guide’, ‘The Last Letter’, ‘Amprapali’, ‘The Last Letter’, ‘Majhli Didi’, ‘Reshma Aur Shera’, ‘Uphaar’, ‘Saudagar’, ‘Manthan’, ‘The Chess Players’, ‘Payal Ki Jhankaar’, ‘Saaransh’, ‘Saagar’, ‘Salaam Bombay’, ‘Parinda’, ‘Henna’,’ Rudaali’, ‘Bandit Queen’, ‘Earth’, ‘Lagaan’, ‘Devdas’, ‘Riddle’, ‘Rang De Basanti’, ‘Eklavya’: ‘The Royal Guard’, ‘Like Stars on Earth’, ‘Peepli Live’, ‘Barfi’, ‘Liar’s Dice’, ‘Newton’ and ‘Gully Boy’.
Of them 3 out of 32 have reportedly received nominations. They are Mehboob Khan’s ‘Mother India’ (1957) was India’s first submission for the Academy Award under the Best International Feature film category and it was nominated for the Oscars the other two Indian films that were nominated include, ‘Salaam Bombay’ (1988) and ‘Lagaan’ (2001).
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After Hindi, it is the Chennai-based Tamil film Industry that sent most no.of films for the Oscars that include most of the Kamal Haasan movies were submitted for Oscars consideration.
The list of Tamil films that was sent by the Indian Film Jury for the Oscars includes ‘Deiva Magan 1969, ‘Nayagan 1987’, Anjali 1990, Thevar Magan 1992, Kuruthipunal 1995, Indian 1996, Jeans 1998, Hey Ram 2000, Visaranai 2016 and Pebbles 2021. Of them, none of the films gets nominated for the Oscars.
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After Hindi and Tamil, it was from the Malayalam Film Industry that sent 3 films to the Academy competition under the Best International feature film category and like Tamil, Malayalam Film Industry too has failed to get the nominations for one or the other reasons.
‘Guru’ 1997, ‘Adaminte Makan Abu’ 2011, and 'Jallikattu’ 2020 are some of the films that were sent from Mollywood.
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Like Malayalam/Mollywood, Marathi cinema too has sent 3 films to the Academy for nominations under the Best International feature film Category, sadly none has been nominated and the films that were sent are ‘Shwaas’2004, ‘Harishchandrachi Factory’ (2009)and ‘Court (2015)’, Sadly none could make it to the Oscars.
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After Malayalam and Marathi, it was Bengali cinema that made more critically acclaimed films and was one of the earlier regional entertainment industries to send films to the Oscars. Satyajit Ray’s ‘The World of Apu’ in 1959, and 'Metropolis' in 1963, were the two film industries that were sent for academy nominations.
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The 2013 film ‘The Good Road’, and this year's ‘Chhello Show’ were two Gujarati films that were considered to send Oscar nominations for Best International feature film Category while the ‘Chhello Show’ has also ditched SS. Rajamouli’s ‘RRR’ to make it to the Oscars this year.
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Telugu film industry usually makes commercial cinema is far behind compared to other regional Industries in making Parallel cinema or Art cinema however it was K. Vishwanath’s 1986 film ‘Swati Mutyam’ was sent for the Oscars and it was the only Telugu film that was sent to the Oscar nominations so far from Tollywood.
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Urdu Film ‘Garam Hawa’ by MS. Sathyu is the only film in the Urdu language that was sent to the Oscars for competition under the Best International feature film Category.
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