Which film should you think should have been selected as Oscar entry? Was TZP the best or selected because it was most popular ?
Mumbai Meri Jaan (Hindi)
Valu (Marathi)
Rock On (Hindi)
Jodhaa Akbar (Hindi)
Tingya (Marathi)
Taare Zameen Par (Hindi)
Wednesday (Hindi)
Ghanyam (Telugu)
Black and White (Hindi)
Actor Aamir Khan’s debut directorial venture ‘Taare Zameen Par’, a sensitive story of an eight-year-old dyslexia child, was selected as India’s entry to the foreign language category for Oscars at the 81st annual Academy awards.
This was announced by filmmaker Suneel Darshan, who headed the film federation of India (FFI) jury to select the film here today.
‘Taare Zameen Par’ written by Amole Gupte was released in 2007 and has received critical and Box Office acclaim. Aamir had said that the film did business of Rs 131 crore at the Box Office world-wide.
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Other films in fray for selection were critically acclaimed Marathi films ‘Valu’ and ‘Tingya’, Nishikant Kamat’s ‘Mumbai Meri Jaan’, Neeraj Pandey’s ‘A Wednesday’, Ashutosh Gowarikar’s ‘Jodhaa Akbar’, Farhan Akhtar’s ‘Rock On!’, Subhash Ghai’s ‘Black and White’ and Telugu film ‘Ghanyam’.
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Film Federation of India (FFI) chairperson Suneel Darshan led this year’s committee for the Oscars nomination. Other jury members include Bijon Das Gupta, Aruna Raje, Ravi Kotharakara, H M Ramachandran, Sudarshan Rao, Mahesh Kothare, Jagdish Sharma, B R Ishara and Manoj Chaturvedi.
Speaking to Businessofcinema.com, Darshan says, “It was a difficult task to choose from the nine movies. The two Marathi movies
were particularly good in their screenplay and treatment. But the committee unanimously chose Taare Zameen Par for its universal appeal.”
This will be Aamir Khan’s second outing at the Oscars. His first home production ‘Lagaan’ made history in 2001 when it reached the final nomination list of the foreign film category.
The awards ceremony will be held on February 22,2009.