Days after missing out on becoming India’s official entry for the 2027 Oscars, the film Naga english has found another path to the Academy Awards. Theja Rio’s film recently won the Platform Prize at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), making it eligible for consideration in the International Feature Film category at the 2027 Oscars under the Academy’s new rules. english Not yet an Oscar nominee, but its TIFF win gives it a direct path into the Academy’s thought process.
The development comes soon after the Film Federation of India (FFI) selected Marathi film Gondhal as India’s official entry for the 99th Academy Awards. english was one of the films considered by the 14-member jury, with jury member Vivek Vaswani telling NDTV that it was the second choice.
Explain why english Didn’t make the cut, Vaswani said, adding that one concern was that the film had not yet been released. He said the jury was concerned that India could potentially be left without an official entry for the Oscars if the film faced technical problems and could not be released before September 30. He also said english received 11 votes from the 14-member jury.
Producers of englishHowever, this logic has been strongly questioned.
Speaking exclusively to NDTV, director Theja Rio, producer Nancy Nisa Beso and Jungle Book Studio founder and film distributor Gaurav Dhingra said they have already submitted the necessary documents and informed the FFI about their release plans.
Nancy said the team was contacted by the FFI on the day the Oscar entry was being announced, asking for additional documents.
“Abira, we submitted all our papers. Actually, the day they were announcing the election, they contacted us saying, ‘Well, we’re missing this paper. We’re missing that paper,'” Nancy said.
He said that due to the time difference, he and Gaurav were sending the papers around 3 or 4 in the morning. According to Nancy, the team had already talked to the UFO and the theater where english was scheduled for release and communicated those details to the FFI before the results were declared.
“The rules and regulations clearly state that we have to release the film for seven days before September 30,” he said, adding that he had the contract for the release, confirmation from the cinema and other documents.
Nancy said she would have understood if the decision was based purely on merit or on the jury’s view of which film best represented India.
“I understand if the decision was based on merit, or what they felt they wanted to portray about India. If they chose another film for that reason, it is completely understandable. But to say that our paperwork was incomplete is not the best thing to say,” she said.
Vaswani’s explanation, however, was that the concern was not that the paperwork did not exist. Instead, the jury was concerned about what if english Failed to release due to a technical glitch or any other unforeseen circumstances.
Gaurav questioned whether any hypothetical possibility should have influenced the election.
“But so what? What have they gained by doing this? Nothing, right?” He said.
He argued that unforeseen circumstances can happen at any time and said that the team has already made the film and is doing everything possible to ensure its release.
Theja has also questioned the timing of the decision. If September 30 was the release deadline, he asked why the prospect of a release-related issue should be decisive when there were still dates before the deadline.
“If at the end of the day, a hypothetical situation is going to be decisive, what’s the point of having a deadline of September 30?” Theja said.
He added that the FFI could have brought the deadline forward if the release date was going to determine the election.
“There were still dates until September 30, and still the announcement came two weeks before that,” he said.
english Now set to release before September 30. While Gondal remains an official subject of India, english has independently secured Oscar eligibility through its TIFF Platform Prize win, meaning both films now have a path to the international feature film race at the 2027 Academy Awards, albeit via different routes.
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