Laapataa Ladies Is "Too Bollywood": Ricky Kej On Why India Missed An Oscar This Year As Well

After Laapataa Ladies failed to make it to the final shortlist of Oscars 2025, three-time Grammy Award-winning music composer Ricky Kej blasted the selectors for sending the Aamir Khan-backed movie as India's official Oscar entry. 

Directed by Kiran Rao, Laapataa Ladies was India's official submission for the Best International Feature category. It was chosen from a list of 29 films including 2023's blockbuster Animal, Malayalam National Award winner Aattam and Cannes winner All We Imagine As Light. 

The Academy, on Tuesday, announced the films shortlisted in the category, where Laapataa Ladies did not make the cut. 

One of the first people to react to it, Ricky Kej said, "Year after year, we are choosing the wrong films," in a long post on X.

Ricky feels that not only are we choosing the wrong films for Oscars, but we also cannot think beyond the "mainstream Bollywood bubble" we live in. 

"There are so many excellent movies made, and we should be winning the #InternationalFeatureFilm category every year! Unfortunately we live in a "Mainstream Bollywood" bubble, where we cannot look beyond films that we ourselves find entertaining," he continued. 

The musician also feels that only good films should be considered for this category, regardless of their budget or star cast.

"We should just look for good films made by film-makers who are uncompromising in their art.. low budget or big budget.. star or no star.. just great artistic cinema," he remarked in the post.

Check out his post here:

So, the @TheAcademy Oscars shortlist is out. #LaapataaLadies is a very well made, entertaining movie (I enjoyed it), but was absolutely the wrong choice to represent India for the best #InternationalFeatureFilm category. As expected, it lost.
When are we going to realize.. year… pic.twitter.com/iWGpSXY1KD— Ricky Kej (@rickykej) December 18, 2024

In the highly competitive International Feature Film category, 15 films were selected for the next round of voting, out of the 85 countries and regions eligible.

Even though Kiran Rao's film did not make it to the list, a Hindi-language film from the United Kingdom, titled Santosh, was shortlisted. 

Meanwhile, Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine As Light continues its impressive streak of accolades. 

After being the first Indian film in 30 years to qualify for Cannes Film Festival, and having won several awards, The film has now earned two nominations at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards - one for Best Motion Picture - Non-English Language and another for Best Direction - Motion Picture.

Till date, no Indian film has won in the International Feature Film category of the Academy Awards. Only three Indian films - Mother India (1957), Salaam Bombay! (1988), and Lagaan (2001), have been nominated, but there have been no wins.