India’s official entry to the Oscars, Anurag Basu’s Barfi, the story of a hearing and speech impaired boy is out of the Oscars race as the Academy announced the list of nine films that will advance to the next round of voting in the Foreign Language Film category for the 85th Academy Awards.

There were seventy-one films that originally qualified in the category. Michael Haneke’s ‘Amour’, Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano’s ‘The Intouchables’ are among the shortlisted films.

Barfi saw some wonderful performances by Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D’Cruz. However, the movie was in between a controversy. Basu was accused of plagiarism after scenes from Barfi were found copied or influenced by several famous films.

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

Austria, ‘Amour,’ Michael Haneke, director

Canada, ‘War Witch,’ Kim Nguyen, director

Chile, ‘No,’ Pablo Larraín, director

Denmark, ‘A Royal Affair,’ Nikolaj Arcel, director

France, ‘The Intouchables,’ Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, directors

Iceland, ‘The Deep,’ Baltasar Kormakur, director

Norway, ‘Kon-Tiki,’ Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg, directors

Romania, ‘Beyond the Hills,’ Cristian Mungiu, director

Switzerland, ‘Sister,’ Ursula Meier, director.

 

So this makes us wonder – what exactly do the Indian films lack that we cannot be shortlisted to the Oscars?