LRMB v/s RDB v/s Maine Gandhi ko…?
I have been talking to quite a few for the past few days about an official entry to oscars of a Foreign movie, the criteria for it and rules for it to do so. Now that India is sending atleast three movies to the Oscars one an official entry( RDB) and two direct entries( Maine Gandhi ko…, LRMB), where do they all fall?
With so many movie fanatics here i thought i should be asking these questions here. Can somebody please answer the following questions before i go mad..lol
1. What is the criteria to select a foregin movie? Is it the language? Should it not be released in USA to get the entry? If language is the bareer, how much of English is accepted in the movie. I rememebr we have quite a lot of english talk going on in RDB
2. Where would the individual entries find there place? Will it be in Foreign Film Category or will they be pitted against the main stream Hollywood movies?
3. Will LRMB and MGKNM be competing against Water and RDB or will it be competing against rest of the other Hollywood movies.
$. Now that RDB is competing as best foreign movie, does the official entry also have chance to be nominated for other categories( I know this is kinda stupid as, RDB has been submitted in 7 other categories)
5. Is it a must for the movies be released for it to be sent for nominations?
I guess i will get my answers here!!!
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
1. Language is part of the criteria. The movie must be predominantly non-English, produced outside of the US, and must be a feature length film played in theaters in the submitting country. I do believe there are some rules governing the film’s format, as well and the length of the release in the home country. The movie must screen at some point for seven days in Los Angeles during the submitting year.
By these criteria, it is hard to define how much English dialog is acceptable, but you would hope someone in India did their homework and researched this before the decision was made to submit this film.
2. Each country is allowed only one official submission, so it would seem that the individual entries will have to go up against mainstream Hollywood films.
3. Is this the same question as 2? LRMB and MGKNM can’t compete in the foreign film category as RDB is India’s official entry, but it appears as if they can submit themselves individually.
I have no idea how this part of the process works, how a movie that isn’t officially sanctioned by its home country can be submitted, but based on the fact that both movies are pursuing this route, it looks as if it can be done as long as they meet the criteria for American movies. Once again, you hope that someone did their homework first….
4. Yes, any film chosen for the final five is also eligible to be entered in the other categories, as long as it meets the criteria for those categories.
4. YES! Not only must the movie be released in its home country, it must also have had a theatrical run with advertising and promotion,and shown for profit. I believe that there is also a provision stating that the government of the home country cannot have been involved with or influenced the production. This is on top of the provision that the movie must play for seven days here in Los Angeles.
There have been some changes to the process, but I haven’t had time to look them up. I believe that the Academy is considering allowing movies to run in New York to meet the criteria for submission (and to include the New York members more say in the process), but I could be wrong on this one.
Also, to avoid some of the past controversy, the Academy will allow submissions this year (for the first time) that allow a country to submit a movie for consideration that is in a language other than the recognized language of that country (as long as it is not predominatly English, once again). I think someone else here mentioned the issues with Cache being rejected by the Academy as it was an Austrian film, in French, about French characters. I believe that there was another Italian movie that was rejected last year as it was predominatly in Hebrew (or some other language other than Italian). Because of this inconsistency, the Academy is changing the rules this year to allow these types of films for consideration. I would look up the details of the Italian movie, or of all your questions, but it is time for bed….
Today’s conversation got you thinking, huh ;)It was good talking with you on Desi Talk!
“lol” all you want its not going to happen.
1. No it does not have to be in english. If the requirement for it to be accepted as a nominee was US release, then why not just accept it as a regular nominee? Case in point Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and Ran by Kurosawa. Numerous other foreign films with US releases have been nominated in the “normal” categories.
2. Language is a barrier. In 2001, the UK-produced film, The Warrior starring Irfan Khan was rejected because its setting was in India and Hindi was not a language indigenous to the UK. So the AMPAA rejected the film and the UK Academy had to send another film. However, the Warrior did sweep the British Academy Awards.
@ T! Thanks a ton. This is the case of unable to think when you have so many questions going on in u r head. All i had to do was a bit of a research, and here i got the link
http://www.oscars.org/79academyawards/rules/rule14.html
It is always a wonderful experience talking to you. Hope to see you here often
@AB Thanks man, i have provided the link…
@ Sumeet, per a previous, unrelated conversation, I like the way that the Academy rules state that “accurate English subtitles are required”. As you know, I have major issues with how badly so many movies are subtitled….
I hope to be a regular contributer, but work, travel and side-projects always seem to derail me from writing here or on my own blog….
@ anangbhai – I saw The Warrior last month at a friend’s house. I had never even heard of the film, but was completely amazed by it. This is one film I would like to add to my library so I can subject unwitting guests to it….
Isnt Water voilating rule 2 of Anangbhai coz am assuming that it is in hindi and it is from Canada?
correct me if i am wrong.
- Rbe, no… they just changed the rules this year, wherein a country can submit a movie in any language as long as as it was made by citizens of that country.
yeah T …
I’m planning to review Warrior it for PFC ….