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Chaitanya Tamhane’s critically acclaimed Marathi film ‘Court’ is the official entry for Oscars Award from India. The ‘Court’ made an entry to the category of Best Foreign Language of the 2016 Academy Awards. A Film Federation of India jury has picked Court from the shortlist of 30 films.
The film-maker Amol Palekar has headed the Film Federation of India. The announcement came out when Ravi Jadhav, a Marathi film-maker who was part of the jury, posted on Facebook that, “Marathi Film 'Court' is the official entry from India for Oscars Award. Proud to be one of the jury member to have backed the film!!!”
In the race to enter the Oscar, ‘Court’, which is a film from Debutant Tamhane, beat Rajkumar Hirani’s ‘PK’, Omung Kumar’s ‘Mary Kom’, Neeraj Ghyaywan’s Cannes winner ‘Masaan’, M. Manikandan’s ‘Kaaka Muttai’, Vishal Bharadwaj’s ‘Haider’, and SS Rajamouli’s ‘Bahubali’.
Tamhane said, “At every juncture of the film’s journey, we have felt that it has given us more than we could ever imagine. Once again, this has come as a genuine surprise to both Vivek and me. Ever since we started making the film, we kept our expectations low. Especially in this case, since these results tend to be so unpredictable, it just felt like a wise thing to not expect too much. Now that it has actually happened, we would like to thank the jury for their decision and everyone who has supported the film so far.”
Tamhane’s ‘Court’ - fantastic year
The film ‘Court’ narrates story of an ageing folk singer’s trial. Through the trial, the film examines the Indian legal system in a lower court in Mumbai. The Indian courtroom drama film has a fantastic year. It travelled 19 national as well as international film festivals and bagged 16 awards.
Among the awards the film won, two coveted awards were the Horizons award for Best Film and the Lion of the Future award for a Debut Film in 2014 at the Venice International Film festival. The Horizons award for Best Film carried a 100,000 $ cash prize. Zeitgeist Films, based in New York, picked ‘Court’ for the distribution in the US. Zeitgeist Films is well known for its sense of identifying the next big film-making talent in the world.
Earlier, in 2004 and 2009, two Marathi films have been selected as India’s entry to the Academy Awards. Shwaas (Breath) by Sandeep Sawant was selected in 2014. Harishchandrachi Factory (Harischandra’s Factory) by Paresh Mokashi’s was selected in 2009. Harischandra’s Factory was made on the life of Dadasaheb Phalke.
-Sumana
