Bollywood Bakwas

India’s official entry Eklavya has met its expected fate in the race to the final five at the Oscars.

The Oscar dream continues to remain elusive for Hindi film industry. Vidhu Vinod Chopra ’s movie ‘Eklavya’ has been knocked out in the very first round for an Oscar nomination.

The movie, starring Amitabh Bachchan , Saif Ali Khan and Vidya Balan , had stirred up a lot of controversy back home in September last year when it was chosen as India’s official entry for the prestigious award in the Best Foreign Film category.

Many celebrities from Bollywood had openly expressed their disappointment at the film’s selection by the Film Federation of India (FFI). Filmmaker Bhavana Talwar, whose movie ‘Dharm’ was one of the contenders, had accused the selection board of being biased and had even taken a legal recourse to get her film selected. However, she eventually gave up and ‘Eklavya’ remained India’s hope for the Oscars.

That hope has now been crushed as ‘Eklavya’ failed to impress the Academy jury and has not been able to make it to the nine finalists of the first round. Four more films will be eliminated in the second phase and five films will finally get Oscar nominations that will be announced on January 22 at Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in California.

The nine chosen films are:

The Counterfeiters (Austria)
Days of Darkness (Canada)
The Year My Parents Went On Vacation (Brazil)
Beaufort (Israel)
The Trap (Serbia)
The Unknown Woman (Italy)
Mongol (Kazakhstan)
Katyn (Poland)
12 (Russia)

The 80th Annual Academy Awards will be held on February 24. The awards show will be hosted by Jon Stewart.