Ranveer Singh's 'Gully Boy' selected for Oscars from India
Mumbai/Kolkata: India selected Bollywood filmmaker Zoya Akhtar's Gully Boy, a Ranveer Singh starring film inspired by the struggle of Mumbai street rappers, as the official entry for the best international feature film category at the Oscars next year.
In its long history the Film Federation of India for the first time held the selection of the country’s Oscar entry in Kolkata with Gully Boy winning the entry from among 27 movies in contention.
FFI president Firdausul Hasan said: “The event is being held for the first time in Kolkata since the process began in 1957. We decided to hold the screenings in a single plex cinema hall because we want to bring back the glory days of old theatres. So we screened the films in Bijoli Cinema one of the old single screen theatres of the city.”
Filmmaker Aparna Sen, Chairperson, Jury Committee, said: “The process was very democratic. We took a long time we discussed the films threadbare and 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."
A total of 28 films are in contention. A Gujarati movie was disqualified, so it came down to 27 films. The Hindi films vying to be selected were Badhaai Ho, Andhadhun, Article 15, Uri: The Surgical Strike, Badla, Kesari, The Tashkent Files and Gully Boy.
The screening process started on Sept 16 and ended today afternoon.
While Aparna Sen (Artist/Director) was the chairperson of the jury committee, members of the jury included Padmanabha Dasgupta (Writer), Sujay Dutta Ray (Editor), Debojyoti Mishra (Music Composer), Ashoke Viswanathan (Director), Pratim D Gupta (Director), Guneet Monga (Producer), Katragadda Prasad (Producer), Sumitra Bhave (Director), Dr Nagathalli Chandrasekhar(Director), Rajendra Talak (Director), Archan Trivedi (Artist), Mahesh Aney (Cinematographer) and N Harikumar (Sound Recordist).
Films in Contention:
Anandi Gopal (Marathi), Andhadhun (Hindi), And the Oscar goes to… (Malaylam), Article 15 (Hindi), Baba (Marathi), Badhai Ho (Hindi), Badla(Hindi), Bandishala (Marathi), Bulbul Can Sing (Assamese), Dear Comrade (Telugu), Ghode Ko Jalebi Khilane Le Jaa Riya Hoon (Hindi), Gully Boy(Hindi), Hellaro (Gujarati), Kesari, Konttho (Bengali), Kurukshetra (Kannad), Mai Ghat: Crime No 103/2005 (Marathi), Nagarkirtan (Bengali), Olu (Malaylam), Oththa Seruppu Size 7 (Tamil), Pahuna: The Little Visitor (Sikkim), Super Deluxe (Tamil), Tarikh-A Timeline (Bengali), The Tashkent Files, Uri: The Surgical Strike, Uyare (Malaylam) and Vada Chennai (Tamil).
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