Gully Boy starring Ranveer Singh and Alia Bhatt and directed by Zoya Akhtar has been chosen as India’s official entry for the 92nd Academy Awards in the Best International Feature Film category. The Film Federation of India (FFI) appoints a committee to choose one film among those released that year to be submitted as India's official entry to the Academy for a nomination for "Best International Film Category" the following year.
Gully Boy is based on the struggles of an aspiring rapper dwelling in the slums of Mumbai who dreams of making it big in the world of music. Murad's role is essayed by Ranveer Singh while Alia plays Murad's love interest and an aspiring doctor as Safeena Firdausi. Murad's mentor's role, MC Sher was essayed by newcomer Siddhant Chaturvedi. Gully Boy also starred Vijay Raaz and Kalki Koechlin.
#GullyBoy has been selected as India’s official entry to the 92nd Oscar Awards. #apnatimeaayega
Thank you to the film federation and congratulations #Zoya @kagtireema @ritesh_sid @RanveerOfficial @aliaa08 @SiddhantChturvD @kalkikanmani & cast, crew and hip hop crew. 🕺ðŸÂ» pic.twitter.com/Eyg02iETmG— Farhan Akhtar (@FarOutAkhtar) September 21, 2019
Gully Boy received immense appreciation from the global audience at the Berlin film festival, where it had its world premiere.
A few countries have already announced their candidates for the prestigious award. While Japan has selected Makoto Shinkai’s Weathering With You, the 2019 Palme d’Or-winning, Parasite, will be South Korea’s official entry to the Oscars. Iran picked Finding Farideh, a documentary film by Kourosh Ataee and Azadeh Moussavi as its entry. Game Of Thrones’ Carice Van Houten stars alongside Marwan Kenzari in Instinct, which is the Netherlands’ official pick this year.
Meanwhile, Nirmal Chander’s documentary film titled, ‘Moti Bagh’ based on 83-year-old farmer Vidyadutt in Uttarakhand from Pauri district, is India's official entry to the Oscar’s documentary feature section. Like last year the 92nd academy Awards reportedly will go hostless in 2020 as well.
In the earlier years, movies like Rajkummar Rao' Newton, Ranbir Kapoor's Barfi were other mainstream Bollywood films that made it to Indian's official entry to Oscars but failed to gain a nomination.
The 92nd Academy Awards will take place on February 9 in 2020.