Pratibha Ranta, Nitanshi Goel And Ravi Kishan React As Laapataa Ladies Becomes India’s Official

New Delhi: ‘Laapataa Ladies’, the critically-acclaimed Netflix film, will be India’s official entry for the 97th Academy Awards, announced by the Film Federation of India (FFI) on Monday. Kiran Rao’s coming-of-age film is about two young brides in India who are separated from their husbands and the aftermath of how they bear their circumstances.

India’s Official Entry: Laapata Ladies

‘Laapataa Ladies’ was released this March on Netflix. The film is produced by Rao’s ex-husband and actor-husband Aamir Khan and Jio Studios.

The jury chose ‘Laapata Ladies’ from 29 films across various Indian languages, including this year’s Cannes Grand Prix winner, ‘All We Imagine As Light’. Payal Kapadia’s film was given a special limited release in Kerala last week to meet the FFI’s eligibility criterion for Academy submission.

As Kiran Rao’s film became India’s official entry to the 97th Academy awards, the film’s cast shared their views on it making it big.

Pratibha Ranta, who plays the role fo Jaya in the film, told news agency PTI, “We were hoping for the film’s selection. Today when this news came out, I was so happy and I don’t know what to say right now. We were hoping for that. I’m so overwhelmed and happy with the response that we have received today.”

Nitanshi Goel, who plays Phool in the film, told NDTV, “I’m just super happy now. The news has taken away all the illness and made me dance all over my room. It was a surprise for me. It was a beautiful surprise. I was like ‘oh my god, is this really happening?’ And then the messages started pouring in. I was like ‘Laapataa Ladies is trending all over.’

Ravi Kishan, who played the role of police officer, in Kiran Rao’s film said, “I am very happy; I can’t believe it. For the first time in my 34-year career, a film I worked in is going to the Oscars. This film represents India, and now the world will see how 80 percent of our villages and rural areas are progressing, which really touched me.

Other films in competition

Among other regional films in contention included Telugu films ‘Hanu-Man, ‘Kalki 2898 AD’, the Marathi film ”Gharat Ganpati’; ‘Ullozhukku’ and ‘Aadujeevitham’ in Malayalam, and ‘Thangalaan’ in Tamil.

Among the Hindi films submissions, ‘Kill’, ‘Animal’, ‘Chandu Champion, ‘Sam Bahadur’, ‘Maidaan’ and ‘Article 370’ were in contention.

“I am deeply honored and beyond delighted that ‘Laapataa Ladies’ has been chosen as India’s official entry to the Academy Awards,” said Kiran Rao. “Cinema has always been a powerful medium to connect hearts, transcend boundaries and ignite meaningful conversations. hope that this film will resonate with audiences across the world, just as it has in India.”

‘Laapataa Ladies’ was selected by a 13-member selction committee chaired by Assamese filmmaker Jahnu Barua who said Rao’s film perfectly captured the diversity of Indian women wh were a ‘strange mixture of submission and dominance.”

The committee said that the film has a story “that can simultaneously be seen as one that needs change, and one that can bring change.”

Meanwhile, ‘Laapataa Ladies’ stars Nitanshi Goel, Pratibha Ranta, Sparsh Shrivastava, Chhaya Kadam and Ravi Kishan.