Rachana Dubey (BOMBAY TIMES; December 19, 2018)

Director Rima Das’ Village Rockstars, which was chosen as India’s official entry to the Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category, is out of the race. The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences announced that nine films have advanced to the next round of voting for the 91st Academy Awards. Colombia’s Birds Of Passage, Denmark’s The Guilty, Germany’s Never Look Away, Japan’s Shoplifters, Kazakhstan’s Ayka, Lebanon’s Capernaum, Mexico’s Roma, Poland’s Cold War and South Korea’s Burning have moved to the next round of voting.

Village Rockstars, which was shot in Assam, revolves around children who lead a fun-filled life despite their adversities and had won the National Award for the Best Film, too. Filmmaker Ananth Mahadevan, who was among the jurors who selected the film as India’s entry to the Oscar, told BT, “I still stand by the selection we made. Rima’s film offered an improvised look at relationships and it belonged to a part of India that has seldom been explored before. I have always maintained that with respect to filmmaking, the world is miles ahead of us. Their concepts and execution is far superior. Village Rockstars was competing with Roma, which according to reports, is the Oscar favourite this year. Shoplifters was a favourite at Cannes. Village Rockstars came very close to being selected in the top nine and it lost out to some of the best works in the world.”

He adds, “We have to improve our standards in filmmaking. Unless we have the fire to stand at par with world cinema and until producers don’t step in to help, we will languish with mediocre stuff. It’s like, why aren’t we at par with the best teams in football? I am not too taken aback by the Academy’s decision, but I still believe that no other film from India could have represented us this year. Our best effort fell short and there is a bitter lesson to be learnt here. Rima has nothing to be disheartened about because her work was knocked off the list while competing with the best the world had to offer.”