I'm not disappointed by Oscar snub: Irrfan Khan

Mumbai, Feb 10 (IANS) US-based Indian filmmaker Mira Nair may be disappointed but her leading man Irrfan Khan is unperturbed by the fact that their movie 'The Namesake' has not been able to make it to the Oscar nomination list.

'I knew 'The Namesake' won't find favour at the Oscars. The culture and the ambience of the movie were alien to America. They live in an enclosed kind of society where their cultures and the way of life are all that matter to them,' Irrfan told IANS.

Based on Jhumpa Lahiri's bestseller, the film starring Irrfan and Tabu is about a migrant Bengali family in the US and their son.

Irrfan says for Americans the story of a film about a migrant Bengali family was alien.

'We're yet to make inroads into the West and the way Chinese cinema is made. I mean, long before Ang Lee's 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon', Bruce Lee had made an impact on the Western audience with his 'Enter The Dragon'. Indian cinema is yet to make that kind of impact. But we're getting there,' he added.

Mira hit out at the Hollywood industry, saying it suffers from colour blindness, but Irrfan says he has suffered a much bigger blow at the Oscars.

'And that was when my British film 'Warrior' by Asif Kapadia failed to make it to the nomination for Best Foreign Film for technical reasons. The Academy rejected 'Warrior' because it was a British film in Hindi.

'According to them, a British film can only be in English! Thank god, since then the language barriers have dissolved. But it was never fun while it lasted.'