The Oscars are a coveted award for any actor, director, screenwriter, costume designer or any other artist working in the filmmaking business. They are globally recognized and give their recipients a feeling of having “made it.” Needless to say each year thousands of films are sent to the Academy Board for selection – even a nomination makes a huge impact on the film’s popularity and its reception.
Coming to India, it has in the history of the Oscars only ever received three nominations – Mother India (1957), Salaam Bombay! (1988) and Lagaan (2001) in the Best International Feature Film category.
It’s not that the Oscars have a bias against foreign films – the historic win of Korean film, ‘Parasite’ this year shows that. Then why have no Indian films been able to win an Oscar since its inception in 1929?
Films selected by the jury are influenced on the basis of their visibility. How much are the producers and filmmakers willing to and can go to lobby for their film? Publicize it? Campaign it amongst the Academy circles? All these factors play a huge role in whether a film gets shortlisted or not. And more often than not, Indian films that are selected for the Oscars unfortunately don’t have enough funds to rigorously campaign for their film so as to create awareness and market them right.
Even if a film does manage to get shortlisted or has the funds for lobbying, as this year’s selection, ‘Gully Boy’ did – it still failed to get a nomination. This could be due to its lack of global appeal at the Awards. Films that have historically won are selected by a predominantly euro-centric jury that have no exposure to the history and culture of India’s stories. While this didn’t stop ‘Parasite’ and ‘Roma’ from winning, it does act as a barrier for Indian films because they have no global or film festival exposure before being selected for the Oscars.
Ultimately, there’s no concrete support from the government as well. There’s just an expectation to reap all the rewards of winning an Oscar but no help to set the films on that path to glory.
While Oscars are a universally accepted award show, let’s take a look closer home. The award shows that are organized within the country such as the Filmfare Awards, Star Screen Awards and Zee Cine Awards to name a few are commercially Bollywood Awards that calling them even Award Shows is a disgrace.
Filled with glittery performances, snazzy editing and mind-hurting “jokes” they’re more about the glam than the real deal. Much like our films, our award shows are more interested in filling the run-time with masala than actually take efforts to make them something worth commemorating.
The real losers are cinema and the audience itself who deserve an award show that’ll highlight the films that deserve their due instead of getting a “fixed” show that is biased to those who sponsor it. When will these so-called wins be acknowledged for what they are? A loss for credible and genuine talent that are failed by the industry time and again for star-power and money.
It’s no secret that Indian award shows have a long way to go before they can be even considered at par with the Oscars. As long as genuine talent is ignored in our country, the Oscars will remain the distant dream for most actors and filmmakers.
This is not to say, the Oscars are the only benchmark of a film’s success or an actor’s talent but they are the only option for filmmakers in an ever-degrading atmosphere in the country. We need to build a distinguished and honourable jury that’ll give films their due and a show that’s not telecasted for TV so that it’s not marred by sponsorship battles and TRP games.
Until then we’ll be glued to our screens in the hopes that “And the Academy goes to…” will finally say India’s name.
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