Three-time Grammy Award winning music composer Ricky Kej on Wednesday blasted the selectors for sending Laapataa Ladies as India's official entry to the Oscars 2025. His take came after Laapataa Ladies was snubbed at the Oscars 2025.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Kej said that the Kiran Rao-directorial is a well-made and entertaining film which he thoroughly enjoyed but it was "absolutely the wrong choice to represent India" at the Oscars.
The three-time Grammy-winner mentioned that India is sending wrong films to the Oscars year after year. He said that with the amount of "excellent movies" being made in India, we should be winning the International Feature Film category every year.
If that's the case, then why has India not been able to win the Oscar in the International Feature Film category?
"Unfortunately, we live in a 'Mainstream Bollywood' bubble, where we cannot look beyond films that we ourselves find entertaining," according to the Grammy-winning music composer.
He added that the selectors should scout good films made by filmmakers who are uncompromising in their art without looking at the budget and actors associated with it.
He said that the focus of the selectors should just be on "good artistic cinema". Furthermore, Kej also shared the two posters of the film and wrote: "Below is the poster of Laapataa Ladies, I am sure most Academy voting members dismissed the film just by looking at these."
Even though Laapataa Ladies did not make it, a Hindi-language international production Santosh found a place in the International Feature Film category. The film was sent by the UK as their official submission for the Oscars 2025.
As of now, no Indian film has won the Oscar in the International Feature Film category. Three Indian films -- Mother India (1957), Salaam Bombay! (1988), and Lagaan (2001) -- were nominated but could not win in the category.
Though a British production, 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire had significant contributions including composer AR Rahman. Rahman won two Oscars for the film.