Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], December 18: Filmmaker Hansal Mehta and Grammy-winning composer Ricky Kej have expressed their frustration with the Film Federation of India (FFI) after Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies, India’s official entry for Best International Feature at the 97th Academy Awards, failed to make the Oscars shortlist.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), Mehta shared his disappointment and posted a screenshot of the shortlisted films, questioning the country’s film selection process. “Film Federation of India does it again! Their strike rate and selection of films year after year is impeccable,” he wrote.
Ricky Kej also voiced his concerns on X, calling Laapataa Ladies the “wrong choice” for India’s Oscars entry. “When are we going to realise… 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 said.
He further criticized India’s mainstream Bollywood-centric approach, stating, “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 filmmakers who are uncompromising in their art… low budget or big budget… star or no star… just great artistic cinema.” He added that he believed the Academy voters would have dismissed the film based solely on its poster.
In September, the FFI, led by Jahnu Barua, chose Laapataa Ladies from a list of 29 films in various Indian languages, including Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light and the National Award-winning Aattam.
While Laapataa Ladies has been eliminated from contention, Santosh, a film starring Shahana Goswami and directed by British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri, remains in the race as the United Kingdom’s official entry. Additionally, Guneet Monga’s live-action short film Anuja has been shortlisted, offering India a glimmer of hope at the Oscars.