The Federation of Western India Cine Employees has protested the selection of the film ‘Chello Show’ from India to be sent to the 2023 Oscars. He says that the jury for this should be dissolved because the method of selection is not right. Federation President BN Tiwari claims that ‘Chello Show’ is not an Indian film at all. He also says that many films like ‘RRR’ and ‘The Kashmir Files’ were in front, but the jury chose the foreign film, which was bought by Siddharth Roy Kapur, who is the producer of this film.
‘Chello Show’ is a Gujarati film which is going to release next month. FFI i.e. Film Federation of India has selected it as India’s official entry in Best Foreign Film category of Oscars. Its English name is ‘Last Film Show’ and it is written and directed by Pan Nalin. It is the story of a rural boy from Gujarat who, with the help of a theater technician, reaches his projector room and watches several movies through the vents there. He brings food items to the technician and in return watches movies and gradually becomes crazy about films.
It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in June last year. It was then nominated for the Tiantan Award at the Beijing International Film Festival. FFI President TP Aggarwal says that the ‘Chello Show’ was selected unanimously by all seventeen members of the jury. According to him, the members said that it is an Indian film and it should be sent to the Oscars. TP Agarwal himself is a filmmaker and says no one asked Vivek Agnihotri’s ‘The Kashmir Files’ or SS Rajamouli’s ‘RRR’ in front of it. By the way, Fahad Faasil’s ‘Malaynkunju’ was also considered to be ahead in the Oscar race.
On the other hand, another Bollywood producer Ashok Pandit says that ‘Chello Show’ is a copy of ‘Cinema Paradiso’. Sharing the posters of both the films ‘Chello Show’ and ‘Cinema Paradiso’, he wrote that the FFI has again made a mistake in choosing the film as it will be rejected at the Oscars for being copied from another film. Interestingly, the Italian film ‘Cinema Paradiso’ named by Ashok Pandit is present on Prime Video and surprisingly has the same story as ‘Chello Show’.
However, the team of ‘RRR’ is very disappointed with the decision of FFI. Its American distributor, Varian Films, has urged 10,000 Academy members to watch it for all Oscar categories. The basis of this additional belief of the team of ‘RRR’ is that the film has grossed $140 million worldwide and trended globally for fourteen weeks on Netflix, a record. Here we should also remember that till date no Indian film has won an Oscar. Only three films have made it to the last five in the Best International Feature Film category so far. These were ‘Mother India’, ‘Salaam Bombay’ and ‘Lagaan’.
