Manjhi director approached to head 17-member jury
Mayank Shekhar (MID-DAY; August 23, 2016)

As October 1, the deadline for submitting entries for the foreign film category Oscar nears, the Film Federation of India (FFI) has put in motion the process to pick the film that will officially represent India at the 89th Academy Awards next year.

Director Ketan Mehta has been approached to head the 17-member jury that comprises technicians and artistes from within the film industry. According to sources at the FFI, Mehta has verbally agreed to take up the coveted job. When contacted, Mehta told hitlist, “I can’t say anything until I have it formally in writing”. Last year, the FFI jury that sent Chaitanya Tamhane’s Court to Los Angeles was headed by actor-filmmaker Amol Palekar.

While India’s hit rate at the Oscars has been abysmal since the foreign films’ category was introduced in 1956 (see box), the Indian entry has often generated controversy, largely owing to the choice of film itself. Indian picks for the Academy Awards in the past have included Indian (1996) and Jeans (1998). In 2007, the FFI, which is a film industry body authorised to send India’s foreign film entry to the Academy, was dragged to court on charges of favouritism over Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Eklavya: The Royal Guard.

More recently, the vote for Anurag Basu’s Barfi (2012) was widely contested on social media, mainly for several scenes that were plagiarised or “inspired” from diverse sources in the Ranbir Kapoor-starrer.