Last month, Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies became India’s official entry for the Oscars. The film beat Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light. Many felt that the Cannes-conquering film would have been a better bet at the Academy Awards. Rao herself believes that the film has it in it to win Best Film, and not just Best Foreign Film at the prestigious awards.
In a new interview with AFP in London, Rao spoke about the lack of representation of women directors, particularly those from South Asia. “Despite being halfway across the world, we still find women under-represented when it comes to most industries, especially when it comes to places where there’s decision-making involved,” she said.
Few women filmmakers have won Oscars, or even secured nominations. Only three women have won the Best Director category, and less than two percent of all Oscar nominees have been women of color, according to research by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Journalism.
This year, three Indian films have sought to change that stat. Apart from Laapataa Ladies, Santosh, a Hindi drama by British-Indian director Sandhya Suri, is also headed to the Oscars as UK’s official entry. And while All We Imagine As Light missed out on being selected as an official entry, the film is likely to be submitted independently.
“It’s great that in this Oscar race, Britain is represented by Sandhya Suri, again, a woman of South Asian origin. Payal Kapadia will be in the best film running after winning Cannes,” said Rao. The filmmaker sees this time as a reckoning for women filmmakers from South Asia. Rao further added, “It’s a special moment for women from India. Finally, our time has come, and I hope it’s the start of a wave of many more stories from India by women. We’ve been quiet for far too long.”
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