A still from Kartiki Gonsalves' short documentary 'The Elephant Whisperers'
Less than a week remains for the 2023 Oscar nominations announcement. Members of the Academy have already voted for who all should be in the running for the top film prizes this year.
Shortlists for 10 categories had been announced in December — which included four films from India. Ahead of the final announcement on January 24, here is a look at those works:
RRR
Directed by SS Rajamouli, RRR stars NTR Jr. and Ram Charan in leading roles.
‘RRR’, which released on March 24, had a spectacular run at the box office.
Pre-independence epic RRR was placed in Best Original Song shortlist (for Naatu Naatu) along with tracks from Avatar: The Way of Water, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and others.
Naatu Naatu has already won two big awards — the Golden Globe and the Critics Choice Award. RRR won a second Critics Choice honour for Best Foreign Language film.
Directed by SS Rajamouli, RRR stars NTR Jr. and Ram Charan in leading roles.
Chhello Show
Gujarati-language film Chhello Show or The Last Film Show is director Pan Nalin’s semi-autobiographical exploration of his childhood fascination with films.
The film is part of the Oscars’ International Feature Film shortlist, along with the German anti-war movie All Quiet on the Western Front and Joyland from Pakistan, among others.
Chhello Show has won wide praise for cast performances, cinematography and direction.
A still from Pan Nalin’s ‘Chhello Show’.
All That Breathes
Documentary film All That Breathes chronicles the lives of brothers Nadeem and Saud, whose lives in Delhi are dedicated to caring for birds at a makeshift basement hospital.
“As legions of birds fall from New Delhi’s darkening skies, and the city smolders with social unrest, two brothers race to save a casualty of the turbulent times: the black kite, a majestic bird of prey essential to their city’s ecosystem,” the film’s synopsis reads.
All That Breathes is in the Academy’s Documentary Feature Film. Among other top contenders on the list is Fire of Love, an American-Canadian documentary about volcanologist couple Katia and Maurice Krafft.
All That Breathes had won the ‘Oeil d’or, or Golden Eye Award, at the 75th Cannes Film Festival in May 2022.
‘All That Breathes’.
The Elephant Whisperers
Another Indian documentary (short), running for an Oscar nomination, is Kartiki Gonsalves’ The Elephant Whisperers.
A still from Kartiki Gonsalves’ short documentary ‘The Elephant Whisperers’
The Tamil-language film delves into the lives of a couple who spend their time caring for a baby elephant named Raghu, forming an unlikely family in process.
