New Oscar rules benefit Indian entries
7 October 2006 | Movies | No Comments
With two Hindi films "Rang De Basanti" and "Water" set to be screened in the Foreign Languages Film Category at the Oscars, Indian entries, with some near misses in the past, may finally be getting into the jury's radar. If "Rang De Basanti", a film about the awakening of youth, is India's official entry for the Oscars; "Water", a Hindi-language film on the plight of Indian widows in the 1930s and directed by Canada-based Indian filmmaker Deepa Mehta, is Canada's official entry.
While "Rang De Basanti's" entry was a-given, it was "Water" that surprised the film fraternity. Very few know that the organisers of Academy of Motion Picture of Arts and Sciences announced two vital changes for the 2006 foreign-language film category in July. One of them is lifting the language constraints. Last year, Italian submission "Private" was considered ineligible because it featured only Middle Eastern languages and the Academy members were hugely disappointed.
Hence they modified the selection criterion so that good films don't fall prey to the rules. This year, entries in the foreign languages category are not required to be in the official language of the country submitting the film. Any language or combination of languages is acceptable, as long as the principle language is not English.
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