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‘Village Rockstars’ beats ‘Padmaavat’ & ‘Raazi’ as India’s Oscar entry

With some strong contenders in the running, the Assamese film ‘Village Rockstars’ (2017) has beaten its rivals and made it as India’s entry at the Oscar’s for Best Foreign Language Film category 2019.

Reported on Deccan Chronicle, some of the other films which had been entered were – ‘Padmaavat’ (2018), Raazi’ (2018) and more recently, ‘Love Sonia’ (2018) and ‘Manto’ (2018). The committee which comprised of 12 members was lead by Kannada filmmaker Rajendra Babu who spoke about being on the jury, “We had a wonderful jury and wanted justice to be given for each film.”

Further adding, “We used to see five films every day, discuss and started making a short list looking into all aspects like narration, screenplay and other aspects. Several commercially successful films like ‘Padmaavat’ and ‘Raazi’ and recent releases ‘Love Sonia’ and ‘Manto’, were among the 29 films viewed by the committee to arrive at a decision, which was unanimously in favour of ‘Village Rockstars.’”

‘Village Rockstars’ (2017) has been directed by Rima Das, who is said to be self-taught, casts her niece Banita Das as the lead in the film, which is about a young girl in a remote village of Assam who has a dream of forming her own rock band.

The film was already given the title of ‘Best Feature Film’ at the National Awards in May this year. Fingers crossed they can bring home the prestigious Oscar, as India has not yet won in the Best Foreign Language Film category, despite being nominated thrice in the past for ‘Mother India’ (1957), ‘Salaam Bombay’ (1988) and ‘Lagan’ (2001).