Not Raazi or Padmaavat, Village Rockstars picked as India's official entry for Oscars

Mumbai: Assamese film ‘Village Rockstars’ has been announced as India’s official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the prestigious Academy Awards to be held in February 2019.

The selection committee of the Film Federation of India made the announcement at a press conference in Mumbai.

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The head of the 12-member selection committee, Kannada filmmaker Rajendra Babu was quoted as saying by Scroll.in, “We had a wonderful jury and wanted justice to be given for each film.”

He added, “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’ was also declared as the Best Feature Film at the National Awards presented in May earlier this year.

The film is directed by ‘self-taught’ director Rima Das and her niece Bhanita Das plays the protagonist of a little girl in an Assam village, who dreams of forming a rock band.

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India has never won the award for Best Foreign Film at Oscars and has been nominated in the official category only thrice, ‘Mother India’, ‘Salaam Bombay!’ and ‘Lagaan’ holding that honour.