For anyone and everyone associated with the film industry, winning the Academy Award aka the Oscar is the ultimate goal. The Indian Film industry obviously doesn’t like lagging behind either. Every year, The Film Federation of India appoints a committee to choose one film among those released that year to be submitted as India’s official entry to the Academy as the nomination for the “Best Foreign Language Film” category.
This year too, the FFI nominated one movie for the category and unsurprisingly, it’s the Rajkummar Rao starrer ‘Newton’. The announcement was made by the Film Federation of India, who said the movie was selected out of 26 contenders.
The movie is a political satire and follows the story of Newton Kumar, a government clerk who is sent on election duty in the conflict-ridden jungles of the Chhattisgarh, reflecting the political reality of that area.
The film was premiered earlier at Berlin where it won the CICAE (International Confederation of Art Cinemas) award for best film in the forum section. It also managed to win a jury prize at the Hong Kong international film festival.
However, in India the movie has just released today and has already received positive reviews from both critics as well as the audience.
The news about the nomination was confirmed by Rajkummar Rao on his Twitter page.
Very happy to share this news that #NEWTON is India’s official entry to the #OSCARS this year. Congratulations team.
— Rajkummar Rao (@RajkummarRao) September 22, 2017
Director Amit V Masurkar, in an interview, expressed his joy over the news, “We are really happy. The fact that the film is releasing today doubles the happiness. We hope that people will now really head to the cinema halls to watch the film,” the director told PTI.
In a matter of a few hours, Twitter was buzzing with tweets of proud Indians who were on cloud nine after hearing the news.
Huge congrats to my favourite actor @RajkummarRao for Newton n hope you win the Oscar ! Good luck .
— Paresh Rawal (@SirPareshRawal) September 22, 2017
#Newton is India’s entry to the Oscars. The best choice in years by the federation.
— Hansal Mehta (@mehtahansal) September 22, 2017
#Newton as India’s official entry to the Oscars!Congratulations @aanandlrai @RajkummarRao & team,can imagine the joy you’ll must be feeling😃
— Akshay Kumar (@akshaykumar) September 22, 2017
#Newton is India’s entry to the Oscars. The best choice in years by the federation.
— Pooja Malik (@PoojaMalik2206) September 22, 2017
Legendary #Newton discovered the law of gravity & @RajkummarRao is discovering law to Oscars by his brilliant acting skills.
— Belfiore Stores (@BelfioreStores) September 22, 2017
Congratulations sir. You make every character look real and that’s a very rare sight in Indian cinema. #Newton
— Ritesh (@IamRitzV) September 22, 2017
So glad to see such appreciation towards intelligent cinema. Congratulations @RajkummarRao #Newton
— Vullary Awasthi (@vullary) September 22, 2017
So glad to know it..@RajkummarRao making proud to us ,and taking an Indian cinema one level up#Oscars #Newton #indiancinema pic.twitter.com/t1eiKvWz5r
— Rajesh Jagani ðŸ?¦ (@imRajeshBJagani) September 22, 2017
Congratulations @rajkummarrao and team #Newton! Successfully putting Indian cinema on the world map! #Oscars2018
— Durgansh Dixit (@Itsreal_DD) September 22, 2017
This #Newton not gonna wait for Apple to fall but Gonna grab it at #OSCARS
“No force can stop the MOTION picture now! My best wishes ðŸ’?ðŸ‘?ðŸ?»ðŸ‘?ðŸ?»
— Vishal Sudarshanwar (@Vishal_Sud) September 22, 2017
Wowwww! A phenomenal actor @RajkummarRao in #Newton makes spot into #Oscars2018
Proud moment for india☺� https://t.co/Ykrb4v0Zbt
— Deepak Thakur (@TechDeepak7) September 22, 2017
And then there is this gem called #Newton. Pure, timely, honest, humorous, wistful and sharp. ���� @RajkummarRao @ManMundra @Amitmasurkar
— Vicky (@sundiairlifted) September 22, 2017
#NEWTON is honest and pure! Congratulations @RajkummarRao @TripathiiPankaj @ManMundra @Amit_Masurkar
— Vicky (@sundiairlifted) September 22, 2017
Over the years, India has bagged three Academy Award nominations in the foreign-language category; first in 1957 with ‘Mother India’, followed by 1989’s ‘Salaam Bombay’ and 2002’s ‘Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India’, however, the country has never won an Oscar.
This year, Newton will face serious competition from a number of movies from across the world- Ruben Ostlund’s ‘The Square’ from Sweden, Fatih Akin’s ‘In the Fade from Germany’, Angelina Jolie’s ‘First They Killed My Father from Cambodia’, Sebastian Lelio’s ‘A Fantastic Woman from Chile’, Farhan Alam’s ‘Sawan from Pakistan’ and Robin Campillo’s ‘BPM: Beats Per Minute from France’, among others.
We’ve got our fingers crossed as we hope that ‘Newton’ does make it to the Oscar nominations and maybe, even manages to win.