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Hi Folks,

The next round of Oscar Foreign Film categories were announced and of course Eklavya did not make it:

Here is the list that did make it to Phase 2:

The films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:

Austria, “The Counterfeiters,” Stefan Ruzowitzky, director
Brazil, “The Year My Parents Went on Vacation,” Cao
     Hamburger, director
Canada, “Days of Darkness,” Denys Arcand, director
Israel, “Beaufort,” Joseph Cedar, director
Italy, “The Unknown,” Giuseppe Tornatore, director
Kazakhstan, “Mongol,” Sergei Bodrov, director
Poland, “Katyn,” Andrzej Wajda, director
Russia, “12,” Nikita Mikhalkov, director
Serbia, “The Trap,” Srdan Golubovic, director

Foreign Language Film nominations for 2007 are being determined in two phases.

The Phase I committee, consisting of several hundred Los Angeles-based members, screened the 63 eligible films and their ballots determined the above shortlist.

A Phase II committee, made up of ten randomly selected members from the Phase I group, joined by specially invited ten-member contingents in New York and Los Angeles, will view the shortlisted films and select the five nominees for the category.

Phase II screenings will take place from Friday, January 18, through Sunday, January 20, in both Hollywood and New York City.

So now all that controversy about voting and VVC and Ek Lavya, etc can take a back seat.

Brings to the question should we care about Oscar’s.

Personally I don’t care about either the Oscar or the Filmfare or the film critics or anything else. I care about ROI. But Oscar’s do have a business connection as does Filmfare, etc. They all add up to the “$’s”. Which is why . Amir “I am glorious and above it all” Khan, says I don’t care about awards and then spends a great deal of moolaah and time in LA, hoping his film Lagaan, get’s the “I couldn’t care” Oscar AWARD (so he does care!!).

Clearly the Filmfare and all those countless awards in India, copy the Oscar’s carpet for carpet, than you speech for thank you speech, heroes wearing shoulder pads for shoulder pads, etc.

What they don’t copy, and what they should be copying is the VOTING METHODOLOGY.

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Here is how the voting for the Oscar is done by the accounting firm of PriceWaterhouseCoopers (source Variety):

“We’re not trying to find one winner,” says Rick Rosas who counts the ballots along with Brad Oltmanns. Both work for PricewaterhouseCoopers. “We’re trying to find the five nominees who have the broadest support in that particular branch of the Academy.”

This is why they use what’s called a preferential voting system or — if you’d like to sound smart and fancy — single transferable voting. The process was selected in 1936 and has been in use ever since.

It starts when the members of each branch select their five favorite performances or pieces of work in order of preference for their category. When these ballots arrive at PricewaterhouseCoopers, they’re sorted by hand according to everyone’s first choice.

In order to be deemed nominated, an artist or movie must receive a qualifying number of first-preference votes. The number of votes it takes to lock up a nomination is determined by taking the total tally of votes cast in a particular category and dividing it by the number of nominee slots available plus one. So that’s six for categories like best actor (five noms allowed) and four for categories like visual effects (where there are only three nominees).

“We divide by that number because it means there’s significant support among the voters for that nominee if they get that number of votes,” says Rosas.

Still, this process doesn’t always produce nominees right away.

“It’s often the case that on the first pass, no one gets nominated,” Rosas says. “You’re talking about people, so everyone has their own opinion, and what we’re trying to do is tease out which five have the most support amongst the broadest number of voters.”

When the first count produces no nominees, the accountants start eliminating from the bottom up. They take the candidates who had the fewest amounts of first-place votes and remove them from further consideration.

Even though those people or films are taken out of consideration, their ballots are redistributed individually according to the person or film selected as the second-preference nominee by the voter. So, for example, if you voted for “Film A” as your first-choice nominee and “Film B” as your second choice nominee, should “Film A” be eliminated, your vote would be re-allocated to “Film B.”

At that point, the accountants re-tally and see where everybody stands after the redistribution of votes. This process of elimination and redistribution continues with second (or third, fourth or even fifth) choice if necessary until there are six stacks of votes. The five with the most votes are the nominees.

Keep breathing. The good news is the rest of the voting process — choosing winners from the nominees — is completely straightforward.

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This I can tell right away, I am almost certain none of our Bollywood awards follow this methodology.

Hell the only time our filmmaker and industry uses Chartered Accountants, is to be the one’s who wash their dirty laundry aka “you tell them there is no money in the bank,e tc” when some deserving actor or director or crew needs to be paid, etc.

But going back to the original premise of this article. The awards. The Oscar/National Award/Sundance, etc don’t necessarily make a film a hit or a flop and don’t necessarily mean more than an audience reaction, but what they do bring is the “monetary gains associated with a film/an actor/a director, etc” being termed “Oscar nominated,” and hence increases their royalty factor. I guess ditto for the bigger Bollywood awards. 

Vivek’s definition of filmi terms:

Oscar & National Award: aka a struggling actor getting a break in a RGV film. No money will be paid, but the recognition that follows will correlate to paisa.

Folks Who Discuss Films In Cafe’s: Real world business people who become unreal and stop adding any “business or bottom line” value to the film

Film Critics: Heyna’s, who will tell the Tiger to hunt, the deer to be killed and then will step into the spoils, to add their value, or percived value.

The Paying Audience and the Investing Folks: Really the only folks who matter, the others, who gives a damn.

Sincerely,

Vivek “whether it is films or life in current day India, why do we only ape the bad of the west and ignore the good” Kumar

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