Taare Zameen Par – India’s official entry for Oscars.
Wow,
Just read this news Taare Zameen Par has been officially selected as India’s enetry in the foreign language category for 2009 Oscars. Congratulations to Amol Gupte, Aamir Khan and most importantly Darsheel Safary. There has been every kind of praise bestowed on this film. Hopefully it will make it to the final 5. I have been seeing Oscar winners in the foreign language categor and this one seems a good fit. One thing for sure that this one is better than Deepa Mehta’s Water. Though I am not sure about other contenders who lost to TZP, who were they?
Good Luck!
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
The other contenders were Vallu, Tingya, A Wednesday, Mumbai Meri Jaan, Black & White, Jodhaa Akbar, Rock On and Ghanyam.
I think TZP is the perfect choice. Many Congratulations to everyone who worked on the film and all the very very best!
rock on? For oscars? amazing!
Can you elaborate 5 top factors, that makes “Taare Zameen Par” as the film who could be “Best Foreign Language Film” of the year at the oscars?
TZP has no hope at Oscars…If Aamir Khan is intelligent he wouldn’t waste his time lobbying for it.
Though frankly, among the other Hindi movies, there is no clear contender.
Haven’t seen Vallu, Tingya, Ghanyam…hope there wasn’t a deserving among them which wasn’t chosen…
Havent seen Valu and Tingya..but from the rest…it must have been a close call between TZP, Wednesday and MMJ…Wednesday couldnt have made it, coz of the radical solution it projects, so, the call must have been between MMj and TZP..
MMJ had a very universal appeal to it, but TZP scored more on the emotional appeal and also, because Aamir has been there and might know how to work it this time…
Good Luck to Aamir Khan :-)
Was Gulabi Talkies during the time-frame for this year’s contention?
Nice to see a Telugu movie Gamyam, in the nominees list. I think TZP worked on emotional front, and has a more broader appeal. Remains to be seen whether Aamir can pull it off this time.
Jateen, the link you gave had the other nominees !
I was happy for TZP and thought that the only other competitor was MMJ.
@4
“TZP has no hope at Oscars…If Aamir Khan is intelligent he wouldn’t waste his time lobbying for it.”
I HAVE A FEELING THAT AAMIR ALREADY KNOWS THIS !!!
GK
Tingya or Valu should have nominated I feel.
While TZP does go over the top at times to raise the emotional q, Tingya is a very touchingly narrated story about a kid and his love for the family’s sick buffalo. It is a Marathi film (so is Valu) and it never goes overboard ever. Valu, hmmm, is about village politics. Not seen this film but from what I’ve read about this film, its an original too.
I guess the Aamir Khan factor works well with the Indian selectors. After Lagaan made it to the top 5, they probably feel that any AK product has a better chance of making it “up there”. Unfortunately good films lose out then.
I guess taare zameen par was going to oscars from day 1 (ie 21 Dec 2007)
Btw who decided that FFI will chose ‘official’ entry? Thik hai there has to be some body. BUT WHO CHOOSE SUNIL DARSHAN TO CHAIR IT??? N WHO CHOOSE MAHESH KOTHARE IN THERE and WHO CHOOSE HIM TO MAKE COMMENT FOR TIMES OF INDIA… As a proud marathi, that was embarassing for me!!
TZP is also something right up the Oscar lane. The Academy loves movies on physical disability and triumph of human spirit kinda ones.
@ parth
the less said abt suneel darshan the better
and mahesh kothare..
hmm he was there in one of my most favourite films as a kid
DHADAKEBAAZ……
i think he directed it as well..though im not too sure…
@ ashwin – yup. He directed the film as well. These guys are part of the selection team? Am zapped….damn…
IMHO Vallu was the best among the lot… but TZP had more “universal appeal”… but TZP will be judged against the previous Iranian entries in the Academy.. lets hope for the best :D
The producer of Tingya, Ravi Rai, is sending the film to the Oscars as an independent entry. Interestingly, unlike last year when the producer of Dharm made all noise against the selection of Eklavya, Ravi Rai has actually praised the selection of TZP. He just feels that Tingya also deserves attention of the Oscar jury, as it has already won awards in international film festivals.
All the best to Aamir Khan & Ravi Rai.
Well foreign movies aside, what would be the likely Oscar nominees, the cupboard looks really bare from Hollywood. As of now the only movies i can think of in Oscar worthy category are The Dark Knight, Burn After Reading. This has to be Hollywood’s worst year for sure, the quality has touched rock bottom.
Leaving aside foreign movies, what would be the likely nominess for the main awards this year. As of now, i can only count on Dark Knight, Burn After Reading and Traitor. Hollywood seems to have totally run out of ideas.
@Ratnakar
The prestige films start releasing in fall and carry into winter. Summer is meant for big budget extravaganzas. The films that I’m looking forward to and have already generated Oscar buzz are
Frost/Nixon, The Soloist, Doubt, Blindness, Changeling, The Road, The Wrestler, Milk, The Reader, Defiance, The Curious case of Benjamin Button, Revolutionary Road and Fanboys.
Why the blazes are people talking negatively about TZP’s chances? For me, it was an excellent choice and a sure shot winner. So why the bally hell are some people on their high horses and their ivory towers and their glass houses dishing out negative comments for such an excellent pick?
There are some dumbsh!# commentators who commented somewhere “TZP has no hope at the Oscars”. WTRoyalF?!? I usually don’t get hassled by negative comments, but this dismissive, mujhe-sab-aata-hai-couch-pe-baithe-baithe-tond-hilate-hilate tone really pissed me off. What he should do is …………
Valu would have been a perfect choice for oscars – its genuine, originale and brilliant – and yes it has international flavour to it. TZP will lose, just because pple have seen Majid Majidi’s films there.
Not having seen all films on the shortlist, I cannot say (yet) if it’s the best, but VALU is certainly a film which would have deserved to go for the Oscar as official entry. It’s a very good film indeed. Does anyone know what’s the exact time frame in which a film’s theatrical release must happen to get on the shortlist in the first place? Just wondering what else would have made sense instead of e.g. BLACK OR WHITE or JODHAA AKBAR.
Wondering why Paruthi veeran was not even in the probable list?
i guess its not only the ‘best movie’ tat counts, ‘win-ability’ makes a huge diff. TZP looks like a movie tat stands a chance bcos its theme is universal which ppl can easily identify with; it has the ‘every child is special tag’ which is gonna draw attention. and the factor tat AK has been there b4 adds credibility. so, jury members are atleast gonna watch it. as mentioned above, its abt triumph of the human spirit, and especially bcos its around differently-abled kids out there.
i think the TZP guys shud trim the movie a bit [cut down on the songs coz they will not mean much to the western audience], and a few mushy scenes
I loved Tingya of all. It has a real (coarse) village feel and the emotional attachment between a village kid and his buffalo is brilliantly portrayed.
‘Jaise Bina Matlab Ka Pyara Rishta Ho Koi’ — TZP
A realistic rendering makes the film very close to heart…
Tingya certainly has a chance.
http://tingya-a-film.blogspot.com/
@Sivakumar sir, exactly if rock on could make it then so should have paruthi veeran, katrathu tamizh and even subramaniapuram..cmon guys how long are we gonna be biased to south indian cinema? i didn like TZP the way i loved Subbupuram..theres gotta be a debate on this.
No chance at all. And I’m sorry I ain’t providing any reasons. Methinks they are quite obvious.
@Crazyrals
Well i think the Academy does love the mushy stuff, witness Titanic, Forrest Gump walking away with a slew of awards. And a large number of the Best Picture winners are pretty much mushy in nature.
@ Abhishek & Sivakumar: That’s exactly the reason why I asked about the time frame/theatrical release. I find this domination of films from Maharashtra highly questionable.
@ Ratnakar Sadasyula: You never know. This year’s ceremony shows a pretty different picture I’d say. For example, I wouldn’t necessarily call NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN mushy:-). While I totally agree that there’s something like an “Oscar film”, a certain type of film favoured by the Academy, I also think we saw more than one or two surprises in the last few years. And I’d say for the foreign-language Oscar, there are different “rules” anyway.
LOL – TZP will not make the top 5 for the Foreign picture nomineee list. It was not well received by western reviewers. This is what Derk Elley of Variety – http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117935724.html?categoryid=31&cs=1 – had to say:
“Actor-producer Aamir Khan (”Lagaan,” “Rang de basanti”) makes a bland helming debut with “Taare zameen par,” whose handle, “Every Child Is Special” sums up its touchy-feely-ness. Pic about a special-needs kid’s plight is so resolutely caring — and devoid of real drama and interesting characters — that it should have “approved by the Dyslexia Assn.” stamped on the posters. Two-and-a-half-hour picture doesn’t even recognize the tyke’s obvious problem until after the intermission, and then fails to capitalize on it dramatically.”
While TZP is a good movie, it falls into the TV disease/disability movie of week category. To westerners it is not path breaking or unusual. Also, it suffers from a poor second half – overly melodramatic and maudlin.
The movies nominated in the past for best Foreign picture deal with the holocaust, colonialism, racism, poverty, etc.
Here is a list of nominees from other countries – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_submissions_to_the_81st_Academy_Awards_for_Best_Foreign_Language_Film.
The French entry – Entre les Murs (The Class) has already won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival this year.
I would not pin hopes of an Oscar on TZP.
@Stefan: Matter of fact i was pretty much surprised when No Country For Old Men won the Best Picture. Because There Will Be Blood was a typical Oscar material, epic, tormented morally ambiguous main character,and of course Daniel Day Lewis. But sometimes they do surprise i guess.
But if we go by the Academy’s past record, most of the time the mushy, feel good stuff or the epic kinda movie prevails over the realistic, gritty one.
Rocky winning over Taxi Driver in 1976.
Dances with Wolves over Goodfellas in 1991.
Forrest Gump over Shawshank Redemption,Pulp Fiction in 1994.
But honestly i think a movie like TZP might be new to Indian standards, but for the Academy movies on dyslexia, autism are standard stuff. It depends on how well Aamir Khan will lobby.
Dear Cinema lovers,
I have a question. Read that the makers of ‘Tingya’ are going to send it as an independent entry to the Oscars.Is that possible? (always thought that only the country’s film federation can nominate films under the foreign language films category) Under which category would such independent entries compete? If every filmmaker started entering his work as an independent entry wouldn’t that open a pandora’s box and create confusion amongst the members of the jury. Somebody please ENLIGHTEN.
Each country making films not in English can nominate one film only for the foreign language award.
But then also I believe anybody who has had a film released in the right time frame, in any language, can also enter that film in the regular non-Foreign Language Oscar Awards categories, or at least some of them.
In such a case, the film is competing with American films for awards. In the Foreign Language category it’s competing only with the other foreign films.
As I recall, last year one of the disgruntled non-nominees from India said he was going to enter his film into the Academy Awards competition, but then did not.
Thanks Darshana.
Rafi…a movie is never copied from a book. Its adapted. And would you say the same about every movie adapted from a book without giving credit to the author? Mind you, you’ll find examples galore of this.