Tamil film Visaranai, which was India's official entry to the Oscars in the Foreign Language Film category, has failed to make it to the shortlist of nine movies that will advance in the race.
The crime-thriller, produced by actor-filmmaker Dhanush and written and directed by Vetrimaaran, was selected by the Film Federation of India to represent India at the 89th Academy Awards.
India has never won an Oscar in the Foreign Language Film category. The last Indian film that made it to the final five nominees at the Oscars was Ashutosh Gowariker's Lagaan. Mother India and Salaam Bombay are the only other two Indian films to have made it to the top five besides Deepa Mehta's Water, which was a Canadian entry.
The nine features that were selected out of 85 entries will now advance to the next round of voting.
The films that have made it to the list are Tanna from Australia, It’s Only the End of the World from Canada, Land of Mine from Denmark, Toni Erdmann from Germany, Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman, The King’s Choice from Norway, Russia’s Paradise, A Man Called Ove from Sweden and My Life as a Zucchini from Switzerland. This shortlist will be winnowed down to the category’s five nominees by specially invited committees in New York.
Visaranai premiered at the 72nd Venice Film Festival and released in India in February earlier this year. Popular Tamil film critic Baradwaj Rangan called the film a “powerful, chilling drama about how the system toys with us”.
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