Gondhal director welcomes Ramayana in the Oscar race: 'I am betting on it'

Gondhal director, Santosh Davakhar, in an exclusive interview with SCREEN talked about films like Ramayana contesting for the Oscars.

Marathi film Gondhal has been officially been selected as India's entry to the Oscars. After the Oscar announcement, director Santosh Davakhar, planned a pan-India release for the film in multiple languages. The film released across the country on November 13 and in a chat with SCREEN, Santosh, along with the film's cast Ishita Deshmukh, Yogesh Sohoni and Nishad Bhoir, spoke about representing India at the world stage.

Beaming with joy and pride, the director exclaimed, "It's a great feeling to represent our country at the Oscars, and it's a proud moment to be telling people, 'Oh, we are representing India at the Oscars.' We are enjoying this moment! But simultaneously, we are also working hard, preparing for the screenings, there's also a constant anxiety thinking if we've missed out on something or is there something that I was working on, has it been completed or not. We are representing India, and the pressure, the anxiety is justified."

'I am betting on Ramayana at the Oscars'

During the conversation, Santosh revealed that the Namit Malhotra-produced and Nitesh Tiwari-directed, Ramayana: Part 1, is also contesting for the Oscars from the general category. He said, "There are few more films like, Ramayana, among others, they are also contesting in other categories but it is from general entry for Best Film, Best Actor, Best VFX, and I think we have a very good VFX film this year, and Ramayana could do something different at the Oscars under this category. I am betting on it."

Previously, in an interview with NDTV, FFI jury member and actor-producer, Vivek Vaswani shared that 4 out of 14 members cast their votes in Dhaurandhar's favour, while majority of the panel believed that the high-octane action spy thriller wasn't an "Oscar material." Mukesh Chhabra, too, in an interview with Hindustan Times expressed his desire to win at the newly introduced 'Best Casting' category at the Oscars. When asked about surpassing a film like Dhurandhar in the Oscar race, Santosh said that he was aware of the metrics required to reach Oscars.

'Dhurandhar has an Indian filmmaking approach'

"Dhurandhar is a good film, its screenplay is superb, and I really love Aditya Dhar's screenplay. But you have to decide whether you want to hit the box office numbers or want to represent a film at the international level. My motive in making Gondhal was very clear, that I have to make it with an international approach. That was personal because of my previous experiences, and I wanted to proudly present my Indian heritage internationally, and hence, I made a film, which had a global appeal and a global filmmaking approach. Dhurandhar has an Indian filmmaking approach. If Aditya Dhar decides to make the same film, same script with an international approach, he could also have his film selected, it's all about the approach," opined Santosh.

Sharing his excitement about Gondhal entering Oscars, and being the least-budgeted among the other 33 competitors, the director said, "I was preparing for the past four-five months to submit Gondhal to the Oscars. When it was officially announced, I was very happy because it was the least-budgeted film (approximately 4.5 crore) among the 33 other nominations. There were movies with massive budgets, whose advertising budget was 4 times more than our actual making cost. The government must have seen something in our film, and hence, unanimously, it was selected as official entry for Oscars under the Best International Feature Film."