Guneet Monga says that the mistake India makes is not selecting films that have American distributors, which diminishes our chance of winning an Oscar
Guneet Monga Pic/AFP
Academy Award-winning producer Guneet Monga Kapoor, who brought home two Oscars with documentary short films ‘The Elephant Whisperers’ and ‘Period. End of Sentence’, sat down for Mid-day’s podcast series The Bombay Film Story to discuss how India can win the prestigious global validation by simply investing in an American distributor.
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Guneet Monga reveals how India can win an Oscar
Guneet spoke to Mid-day before India could send its official entry for Oscars 2025. The Film Federation of India has selected Kiran Rao’s ‘Laapataa Ladies’ this year. The producer says, “If India has to choose a film for Oscars, it's very important that you have an American distributor. Your journey there becomes easier.”
‘Laapataa Ladies’ is the third film from Aamir Khan’s production house to have been submitted after ‘Lagaan’ and ‘Taare Zameen Par’. That being said, only ‘Lagaan’ managed to get a nomination. Guneet explains, “That's because Sony Picture Classic distributed it there. We missed that point. But to every person and journalist, please send films with US distributors. Netflix was there on ‘Period. End of Sentence’ and ‘The Elephant Whisperers’. They're solid US distributors. They have a mechanism, they know the work, and they have fabulous marketing.”
How ‘RRR’ won an Oscar without India’s official entry
'Naatu Naatu' from ‘RRR’ was the first Telugu song to be nominated in the 'Original Song' category at the Oscars. It won the award trumping big names such as Rihanna and Lady Gaga. Guneet avers, “What ‘RRR’ did was phenomenal. They actually brought distributors on board and re-released the film and spent a lot of money doing the main Oscar race, because they were not India's entry. What ‘RRR’ did was opening insane amount of doors for Indian cinema. And that needed a lot of capital, a huge amount of capital, and a huge amount that ‘I'm going to go all in and play the bigger game’.”
How Indian films need to be selected for Oscars
Guneet concludes by saying, “Nomination is a very, very big deal, and to win is like out of dreams. The toughest part of the Oscars is to go from shortlist to nomination. Even to get to the shortlist, there is work that needs to be done, which we here in our feature film category don't really understand. So somehow the committee here constantly feels we should send our best film, what they think is the best film, as if they are giving the award. Think about it as cricket, right? If you are doing something at your World Cup level, you will send your best person who is able to win with that and you are constantly shuffling your team. You have to be able to send a film that has American distribution, period.”
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