Literally no Indian film has ever "won" an Oscar in Film category!

Do people not realize that NO INDIAN film has ever won an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category. ?

Every year there are some candidates that are sent to Oscars for this category, and since 1958, Only THREE Indian films have made it to the final "nomination" and those films are:

1. Mother India (1958)

2. Salaam Bombay (1989)

3. Lagaan (2001)

Lately, I have been reading reading a lot of posts online on why Laapata Ladies got out of the Oscars race. Many people are saying that it was an overrated film, and some are even calling it a bad film, and labeling it as poverty po*n etc etc.

There is a section that is comparing LL with Slumdog Millionaire (2008) and RRR (2022), which is ridiculous because those two did not win any award in the film category. They were awarded for its music. Slumdog was technically a "British film" anyways.

The Elephant Whisperers (2022) was a documentary, and not a feature film.

I am not trying to belittle above achievements btw, so please don't divert the topic by focusing on them.

But all this hullabaloo regarding LL is very annoying, because some folks are comparing LL with Academy winners like The Shape of Water, Moonlight, Spotlight etc when they were American films and nominated in the separate category of their own. There is literally no comparison here.

Laapata Ladies was a brilliant film, and truly loved by people from all walks of life, just like 12th Fail (2023). It was not preachy, it was not vulgar and it was not OTT.

We don't need to diss the film now just because it didn't get selected at the Oscars. I guess the film was deeply rooted in "Indian" context and not made for the sensibilities of people abroad, probably that's why it did not get selected. Who knows?

There is literally no guarantee that All We Imagine Light or any other film would have made it to the final nomination list, let alone win the award because our conversion rate in this category is...... very very low at the Oscars!

It did

PATTHAR PANCHALI (from Appu's trilogy)

Directed by the genius Satya Jeetray

Originally posted by: sharaban

It did

PATTHAR PANCHALI (from Appu's trilogy)

Directed by the genius Satya Jeetray

NO!

Are you referring to the 1992 recognition given to the great Satyajit Ray?
While it was a very big achievement for Satyajit Ray, it was not a film award to any particular film.
It was an honorary award given to Mr. Ray himself, for his contribution to Indian/world cinema through his work.

A big feat. indeed, but wrong comparison again.

Oscars ? No go count your money

Originally posted by: diasingh2

NO!

Are you referring to the 1992 recognition given to the great Satyajit Ray?
While it was a very big achievement for Satyajit Ray, it was not a film award to any particular film.
It was an honorary award given to Mr. Ray himself, for his contribution to Indian/world cinema through his work.

A big feat. indeed, but wrong comparison again.

No

Referring to the real oscar given to it during 50s after its original run.

out of the seventy-seven awards handed out by the academy since 1947 to foreign language films, sixty have gone to European films,nine to Asian films,five to films from the Americas and three to African films.

Originally posted by: sharaban

No

Referring to the real oscar given to it during 50s after its original run.

Originally posted by: S_H_Y

out of the seventy-seven awards handed out by the academy since 1947 to foreign language films, sixty have gone to European films,nine to Asian films,five to films from the Americas and three to African films.

Thank you for sharing this.

No Indian film has even won the foreign language award, apparently no body checks the facts anymore. But Internet par sabko "expert" banna hai.

In my view, an Indian film will win in Oscars when there is a big uproar about that film in the American and British markets. RRR winning in music category was that exactly. I'm actually surprised that it didn't win in the film category as well given the uproar. But the uproar also needs to be two-part: (1) politics/race related and (2) film related.

I don't know if it's common knowledge or just a conspiracy theory, but I've read that the only reason Slumdog Millionaire won some awards is thanks to the Shilpa Shetty-Big Brother controversy around that same time. The UK needed to show their inclusivity and open-heartedness as a whole and Slumdog Millionaire was doing well at BO anyways, so it got awards.

RRR came out in 2022 - right as things were opening up, the US was recovering from Trump, and there were major claims that the US had neo-Nazis who were becoming the face of the US. US and India have mostly had good relationships so it was easier to make an Indian film win at least in some category and make an uproar about that while hiding the fact that it wouldn't win in the Best International Film. I'm not going down the path of whether a film deserves that win or not.

Now this year - right now - things are fine on the Indian front. No major issues, no racism, no controversies, etc. India-Canada relationships are shaky, not India-US. So while the film may or may not be a good submission, it's not going to win because the political relationships are fine. I'm a bit surprised it didn't at least make it to the shortlist of nominations, but then again - why rock a boat that is sailing mostly smoothly. If it got into shortlist, then there would be expectations for it to win and the relationships might become shaky when it doesn't win.

Originally posted by: Minionite

In my view, an Indian film will win in Oscars when there is a big uproar about that film in the American and British markets. RRR winning in music category was that exactly. I'm actually surprised that it didn't win in the film category as well given the uproar. But the uproar also needs to be two-part: (1) politics/race related and (2) film related.

I don't know if it's common knowledge or just a conspiracy theory, but I've read that the only reason Slumdog Millionaire won some awards is thanks to the Shilpa Shetty-Big Brother controversy around that same time. The UK needed to show their inclusivity and open-heartedness as a whole and Slumdog Millionaire was doing well at BO anyways, so it got awards.

RRR came out in 2022 - right as things were opening up, the US was recovering from Trump, and there were major claims that the US had neo-Nazis who were becoming the face of the US. US and India have mostly had good relationships so it was easier to make an Indian film win at least in some category and make an uproar about that while hiding the fact that it wouldn't win in the Best International Film. I'm not going down the path of whether a film deserves that win or not.

Now this year - right now - things are fine on the Indian front. No major issues, no racism, no controversies, etc. India-Canada relationships are shaky, not India-US. So while the film may or may not be a good submission, it's not going to win because the political relationships are fine. I'm a bit surprised it didn't at least make it to the shortlist of nominations, but then again - why rock a boat that is sailing mostly smoothly. If it got into shortlist, then there would be expectations for it to win and the relationships might become shaky when it doesn't win.

Shilpa went to UK Big Brother and Oscars is presented by the United States, so it seems more like a big conspiracy theory to me. In fact, the UK film industry itself submit their films in Best International Feature Film category. So I don't see any direct correlation of Shilpa's racism controversy (that happened a year before and was perfectly settled within months of her win) with the win of Slumdog.

Slumdog had an international appeal (despite being set in India and having several members of Indian cast) and made its way to pop culture at that time. It won 4 awards, out of 5 nominations, thanks to ARR, Gulzar and Pokkuty. Indians celebrated it because the recipients were Indians.

Life of Pi (a similar example) was also a very culturally popular film at its time. It won 4 Academy awards, but none of the recipient were Indians, so no one celebrated it, unlike Slumdog.

RRR got only 1 word, which was for its "Naatu naatu" song. Whether it deserved or not, is a separate discussion, but it indeed did win because of its international popularity. It was submitted for 14 categories, but made it to just one.

I agree with the fact that the cultural impact, popularity and uproar (as you said it) do impact the decision making at the Oscars, but I don't think country-level politics would play a large role, especially now. Because Academy Awards themselves are on crossroads with American politics since a decade or so, particularly due to the growing popularity (and eventual victory) of Trump.