Indian Movies At Oscars - Case Studies

In the previous articles we have discussed the Expectations, Causes of Failure and the Importance of Oscars. This post covers a few case studies, which could not make a successful performance at the Oscars in the past.

Mother India (1957)

Produced and Directed by Mehboob Khan, Mother India is perhaps the ultimate tribute to womanhood. Why Mother India couldn't make it at the Oscars -

• The length of the movie
• Apartheid was on a high during that time, which might have been another cause of failure

Indian Movies At Oscars - Importance Of Oscars

What makes Oscars important for Indian movies?

• To achieve international appreciation
• To increase the market of Indian films worldwide
• As we deserve it

We all know that winning an academy award is nothing but achieving international appreciation so it’s important for us to win it to prove ourselves.

And by winning this award the range of market, for our films increases, which make the film, do well at box office. And this means the producer wouldn’t be at loss due to the lack of non-commercial elements in his movie.

The important thing is that we deserve the academy award for our films, there is no doubt that some discrimination towards Indian films exists otherwise it’s ridiculous that we haven’t won it till now even though decades have passed since its inception.

Indian Movies At Oscars - Causes Of Failure

• Politics in Indian selection committee
• Differences between local film industries here
• A good number of films being produced yearly
• Most of the movies being the remakes of English ones
• Less number of movies produced for the sake of human values

To explain the above terms briefly, let’s talk about the politics in Indian selection, we actually have a selection committee in India to select a movie among the Indian movies to send as the Indian entry to the Oscars. The committee consists of the members coming from different territories of India and they support the films of their region without looking for standards and the film from a region with more number of members will be selected irrespective of the standards. Due to this reason the film "Water" has been nominated for Oscars as a Canadian entry though being an Indian film.

Indian Movies At Oscars - Expectations Of The Jury

Previous Oscar Winners

The Oscar is a distant dream for the country's top award-winning filmmakers, but as thought it is not that we have never got an Oscar award.

• Bhanu Athaiya (1982) is the first Indian to get an Oscar. She received the Costume Design Award for her movie Ghandhi
• Satyajit Ray (1992) got an Oscar in the Lifetime Achievement Category

However these awards are customarily thought to be some sort of consolation.

Indian Movies At Oscars - Introduction

Recently me and a few of my friends (Raghuveer, Bhanu Kishore, Swetha and Mounika) disturbed by the fact that India never won an Oscar decided to present a case study on the "Position of India at the Oscars" in a Non-Technical seminar at our college. This and the following few articles are about it.

The Academy Awards popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremony in the world. Awarded annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since 1929 in Los Angeles. It recognizes excellence in many aspects of motion picture making such as acting, directing and screenwriting. AMPAS is a professional honorary organization which as of 2007 has a voting membership of 5,830. Actors (with a membership of 1,311) make up the largest voting block at 22%. The votes have been tabulated and certified by the auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers.