The Film Federation of India announced on Monday that Kiran Rao's directorial, Laapataa Ladies, is India's official entry for the Oscars 2025 in the Best Foreign Film category . The film was chosen out of a list of 29 feature films made in various languages.
Laapataa Ladies triumphed over the likes of Ranbir Kapoor's Animal, National Award-winning film, Aattam, Cannes Film Festival winner, All We Imagine As Light, Prabhas-Deepika Padukone's blockbuster Kalki 2898 AD, among other films.
A number of other Hindi films were also in the run for an Oscar entry from India, including Ajay Devgn's Maidaan, Kartik Aaryan's Chandu Champion, Yami Gautam's Article 370, Randeep Hooda's Swatantrya Veer Savarkar, Rajkummar Rao's Srikanth, Vicky Kaushal's Sam Bahadur, Manoj Bajpayee's Joram, Kill, and Good Luck.
Three films were submitted from the Telugu film industry -- Kalki 2898 AD, Mangalavaaram, and the critically-acclaimed Hanu-Man.
From the Tamil film industry, Vijay Sethupathi and Anurag Basu's Maharaja was in the race for an Oscars entry, along with Thangalaan, Vaazhai, Kottukkali, Jamaa and Jigarthanda 2.
Along with Aattam and All We Imagine As Light, the Malayalam film, Ullozhukku was also submitted to the Film Federation of India.
Two films from Maharashtra -- Swaragandharva Sudir Phadke and Gharat Ganapati -- were in the contenders' list for Oscars.
The decision to send Laapataa Ladies to Oscars 2025 was unanimously taken by a 13-member selection committee headed by Assamese director Jahnu Barua. The film, which is a satire on patriarchy, stars Nitanshi Goel, Pratibha Ranta, Sparsh Shrivastava, Chhaya Kadam and Ravi Kishan, among others in key roles.
