It seems some filmmakers were not impressed with ‘Missing Ladies’, India’s official entry for Oscars 2021. After Ricky Cage and Hansal Mehta, ‘Udaan’ fame Vikramaditya Motwane expressed disappointment over Kiran Rao’s film, the film federation’s first choice for the Oscar entry. For those unaware, ‘Missing Ladies’ was recently disqualified from the Best Foreign Feature Film category. Motwane recently spoke in an interview with Bollywood Hungama about how ‘All We Imagine as Light’ would have been a better choice.
Why does Vikramaditya Motwane think Missing Ladies wasn’t the best choice for an Oscar?
When Motwane was asked why he doesn’t think ‘Missing Ladies’ is best suited to be India’s official entry at the Oscars 2024, the ‘Jubilee’ filmmaker said, “Depends on what you want. If you Want to win an Oscar, I don’t mean maybe All We Imagine as Light won the Grand Prix at Cannes, you’re saying it’s the second best film of the year.”
Motwani on the decision of Film Federation of India
Vikramaditya Motwane criticized FFI for rejecting ‘All We Imagine as Light’ as India’s official entry to the Oscars 2024, even though it considered the film to be a European film. The acclaimed-filmmaker said, “Film Federation of India, I don’t understand what is the logic of these 13 people (members). They did not select All We Imagine as Light because it is a European film. It It is not an Indian film. I mean it is wrong to define Indianness and the same applies to films.”
He further added that ‘All We Imagine as Light’ ‘pretty much caught every single critic around the world off guard’ and hence it was no big deal that Payal Kapadia’s film was better suited for the selection. He also recalled how ‘The Lunchbox’ had been ignored earlier also.
Recently, the Film Federation of India was criticized on social media for selecting it as India’s official entry after ‘Lapata Ladies’ failed to make it to the Oscars 2025 list. On the other hand, the federation’s jury chief said, “The jury felt that the films that have gone to the Oscars in the last few years lacked Indianness. A film needs to represent the nation. We felt that the missing ladies were Everything is there.” The right elements, and brilliantly presented the social chaos we go through, the jury felt that her (Payal Kapadia’s) film was technically very poor.”
Vikramaditya Motwane Work Front
Motwane is all set for his upcoming series ‘Black Warrant’ on Netflix in January 2024. The series will see Shashi Kapoor’s grandson Zahaan Kapoor play the role of a jailer who is trying to survive in India’s ‘most unforgiving prison’.
