Siddharth Roy Kapur and director Pan Nalin are determined to get the Oscar for India with their evocative Gujarati masterpiece Chhello Show. Apparently the team has pulled out all stops and will spend close to Rs 10 crores in seeing the film make it into the Oscar shortlist.
10 crores may seem like chicken feed when compared with what other Oscar entries from more affluent firstworld countries spend. But it is still a lot of money considering Chhello Show’s shooting budget was 6-7 crore rupees.
Nonetheless Kapur, known to have a keen sense of cinema, has pitched Nalin’s film into the Oscar race wholeheartedly.
Pan Nalin says he has put all his future projects on hold. “I need to dedicate the coming months to Chhello Show and its campaign for the Oscars.”
Nalin was “hurt and bewildered” by attempts by a section of the film industry(the section that has nothing better to do) to malign Chello Show by accusing it of being plagiarized from an Italian film Cinema Paradiso.
Says Nalin, “Every nation celebrates and supports their selection to the Oscars meanwhile we end up wasting our time dealing with such malice and baseless allegations. But since last few days we are happy that as more and more people watch Chhello Show they are rising in our support.”
About the struggle ahead for the Oscar, Nalin says, “We should not forget that Oscars are American awards given away by the The American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The movies must touch and win hearts of those 9 to 10,000 Academy members, it does not matter if it’s a popular film or not. I guess what the Academy looks for is whether the film or filmmaker has successfully managed to push cinematic boundaries.”