The makers of the film ‘Swatantrya Veer Savarkar’ recently claimed in an Instagram post that the film had been officially submitted for the Oscars. The post featured a poster of the movie on which the following was written: “Officially submitted for the Oscars 2024″ | “Thank you Film Federation of India for this remarkable appreciation”.
Swatantrya Veer Savarkar, a biopic of Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, released on March 22, 2024. It was Randeep Hooda’s directorial debut. He also plays the eponymous hero. The Instagram post was shared on Tuesday, September 24, 2024, collaboratively by producers Sandip Singh and Anand Pandit, actress Ankita Lokhande Jain and production house Legend Studios. (Archive)
The caption reads, “Honored and humbled! Our film SwatantryaVeer Savarkar has officially been submitted for the Oscars. Thank You FILM FEDERATION OF INDIA for this remarkable appreciation. This journey has been incredible, and we are immensely grateful to everyone who has supported us along the way…”
Multiple media outlets subsequently reported that the movie, Swatrantrya Veer Savarkar, had entered the 97th Academy Award race. Some of them directly claimed that it was India’s official entry. Guwahati Plus, a print and digital media outlet from Assam, claimed ‘Swatantrya Veer Savarkar’ was submitted as India’s “official entry” for Oscars 2024.
The claim is being widely shared on X (formerly Twitter) as well.
On Instagram too, the same claim — that the Savarkar biopic is India’s official entry to the Oscars — has been made by several handles.
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Fact Check
First of all, the mention of ‘Oscars 2024’ in the Instagram post by the makers of the movie makes no sense. The Oscars 2024, the 96th edition of the Academy Awards, was held in March 2024. ‘The Zone of Interest‘ from the United Kingdom won the Best International Feature Film award. All that is done and dusted.
The 97th Academy Awards ceremony will be held on Sunday, March 2, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood.
India’s Official Submission to the Academy Awards 2025 is ‘Laapataa Ladies’
The Film Federation of India (FFI) announced on Monday, September 23, in Chennai that Kiran Rao-directed ‘Laapataa Ladies’ had been selected as India’s official submission to Oscars 2025 in the Best International Feature Film category.
News agency ANI tweeted the Film Federation of India (FFI)’s citation announcing the selection. (@ANI)
‘Laapataa Ladies’ is India’s official entry to the Oscars in the Best Foreign Film Category 2025. pic.twitter.com/2gjzgzsDDJ
— ANI (@ANI) September 23, 2024
The citation says, “…Laapataa Ladies (Hindi) is a film that can engage, entertain and make sense not just to women in India but universally as well.”
The best International Feature Film category at the Academy Awards allows each country to submit only one film for consideration. And the selection has to be made by an approved organization, in India’s case, the FFI. See the relevant section of the Academy rules below (the dates re to be ignored):
A relevant keyword search led to a report of an interaction between the Hindustan Times and the FFI president Ravi Kottakara. HT reported that Kottakara ‘laughed’ when told about the claim by the makers of the Savarkar movie and clarified that FFI was not involved with the announcement made by the producers of ‘Swatantrya Veer Savarkar’. Kottakara said, “They (the makers of Savarkar) have given some wrong communication. I am going to release a statement about it as well. Only Laapataa Ladies has been sent for Oscars from India officially.”
The Times of India also reported on similar lines.
Notwithstanding the above, any film maker from anywhere in the world can independently submit their film to the Academy. But this will not be considered as that country’s official submission to the Best International FIlm category.
The FFI president told India Today Digital in an interview, “However, one can also submit their films independently to the Academy. There is a provision for filmmakers to do that. However, that too is only a submission. But it has nothing to do with the federation. We have already released a statement announcing our choice…”
Below is the section of the Academy’s rules that deliberate on this:
How was ‘Laapataa Ladies’ Selected?
The selection process begins with the executive committee of the FFI inviting applications to submit their cinematic works for the evaluation by the jury. This year, the application window was open from August 15 to September 10.
The FFI has its eligibility criteria which must be followed by the submissions. For example, it should be released between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024 and publicly exhibited for at least seven days in a commercial theatre. Then there are Academy rules that have to be followed. For instance, The Academy defines an international film as one which is “a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the United States of America and its territories with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track.”
A payment of Rs 1.25 Lakh has to be made to the FFI with the details of the film, its crew and other submissions. In a press release, the FFI wrote, “We welcome more and more films to participate in the run to get nominated as India’s entry into Oscars this year.” It added that it will “provide all the help to the producers to have a smooth, democratic and transparent nomination process”.
The FFI jury was headed this year by Assamese film director Jahnu Barua.
Barua told to the Indian Express in an interview, “We were in Chennai for 7-8 days, and we were watching the 29 films that were sent to us. Throughout this period, we used to have in-depth discussions about the films.” The Indian Express reported that on the jury’s selection criteria Barua said the film should represent “India’s social systems and ethos.”
“The Indianness is very important”, said Barua and that made the jury come to an unanimous decision of selecting Laapataa Ladies as the official entry for 97th Academy Awards.
Was ‘Swatantrya Veer Savarkar’ Ever in Consideration?
Yes, the film was one among the 29 submissions.
This year the list included movies such as Payal Kapadia’s Cannes winner All We Imagine as Light, Anand Ekrashi’s National Award-winning Aattam, sports drama Maidaan, Chandu Champion, Article 370, Srikanth, Sam Bahadur, Kill, Good Luck, Animal, Kalki 2898 AD, Thangalaan, Vaazhai, Kottukkali, Jama, Jigarthanda Double X, Ullozhukku, Abha, Gharat Ganpati,Swargandharva Sudhir Phadke, Maharaja, Mangalavaaram and Hanu-Man along with Laapataa Ladies and Swatantrya Veer Savarkar.
What Happens Now?
From all the submissions, 15 films are shortlisted by a preliminary committee through votes. A nominating committee then views and votes the shortlisted 15 films and selects the list of five nominations. Finally, the members of the Academy vote for the winner from these five nominations. The final nominations will be announced on January 17, 2025.
Only thrice has an Indian movie reached the final nominations in this category. These are Mother India (1957), Salaam Bombay (1988) and Lagaan (2001). Last year, ‘Everyone is a Hero’, a Malayalam film on the Kerala floods, was India’s official entry for the Oscars. The movie did not secure a nomination.
To sum up, ‘Swatantrya Veer Savarkar’ is definitely not India’s “official” entry for the 97th Academy Awards. The Instagram post, which says it was officially submitted to the Oscars, and then thanks the FFI for it appreciation is misleading.
In 2023, filmmaker Vivek Agnihotri falsely claimed on X (Twitter) that ‘The Kashmir Files’ had been ‘shortlisted’ for Oscars 2023, in ‘the first list of The Academy’. He also stated that it was one of the five Indian films that had been named on the list. The Alt News fact check of this can be read here.
Ankita Mahalanobish is an intern at Alt News.
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