Village Rockstars out of Oscar race

India's Oscar nomination, Village Rockstars, the Assamese film, which bagged the National Award for the Best Feature film, is now out of the race for bagging the Best Foreign Language Film prize at the 91st Academy Awards and so is Iram Haq's Norwegian drama What Will People Say, starring Adil Hussain. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences on Monday announced shortlists for best foreign language film and eight other categories.

India's Village Rockstars had won the top honour in the country. At the National Film Awards 2018, the film won Best Feature Film, Best Child Artist, Best Location Sound Recordist and Best Editing.

After selecting Village Rockstars as India's entry to the Oscars, Film Federation of India's SV Rajendra Singh Babu had spoken about the reason as to why India films don't do well at the Oscars. He had then said, "Many Indian films reach there but because of their rules and perspectives, our films are not eligible. The film which is selected from here should be properly presented at the Oscars, and that needs huge money. When a film goes there, we need at least two crore rupees to promote the film there, to present it to the Academy members. There are many processes, and we may be failing there. There is an acute lack of funds to carry out these processes effectively."

Colombia's Birds of Passage, Denmark's The Guilty, Germany's Never Look Away, Japan's Shoplifters, Kazakhstan's Ayka,Lebanon's Capernaum, Mexico's Roma, Poland's Cold War and South Korea's Burning will proceed to the next round of voting for the Foreign Language Film category of the 91st Academy Awards. 87 films from all over the world were submitted for this category.