‘Indian films laapataa’: Hansal Mehta slams FFI’s ‘strike rate’ after Kiran Rao’s Laapataa Ladies exits Oscars 2025 race

Filmmaker Hansal Mehta and composer Ricky Kej wasted no time in calling out the Film Federation of India after India’s official entry for Oscars 2025, Kiran Rao’s satire Laapataa Ladies, failed to make the cut in the shortlist of the Best International Feature category. Hansal sarcastically flagged FFI’s dismal “strike rate and selection of movies year after year.”

What Hansal, Ricky said

Hansal took to his X handle on late Tuesday night and shared the shortlist of the Best International Feature category at the 97th Academy Awards. He wrote sarcastically in the caption, “Film Federation of India does it again! Their strike rate and selection of films year after year is impeccable.”

Several X users echoed Hansal’s stance. One of them commented, “Indian films Laapata!” Another wrote, “AWIAL will forever be a whatif,” referring to Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light, which was considered by many to be a stronger contender for India at Oscars 2025, but wasn’t selected by the FFI.

“Bandit Queen’s non selection was even more funny. Censors help up the movie from release hence could not qualify,” wrote a third user, recalling how Shekhar Kapur’s crime drama Bandit Queen wasn’t picked by the FFI as India’s official Oscars entry in 1995. It selected PC Sreeram’s 1994 Tamil action thriller Kuruthipunal instead.

Grammy Award-winning composer Ricky Kej also took to his X handle and shared a couple of Laapataa Ladies posters. He wrote a long note in the caption: “#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 after year.. we are choosing the wrong films. There are so many excellent movies made, and we should be winning the #InternationalFeatureFilm category every year,” he added.

“Unfortunately we live in a ‘Mainstream Bollywood’ bubble, where we cannot look beyond films that we ourselves find entertaining. Instead 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. Below is the poster of #LaapataaLadies, I am sure most academy voting members dismissed the film just by looking at these,” Ricky concluded.

Laapataa Ladies out of Oscars race

The Hindi film, directed by Kiran Rao, is not part of the shortlist of 15 features that will be vying for a spot in the final five, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) announced on Tuesday.

However, British-Indian filmmaker Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, starring Indian actors Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar, representing the UK, has made it to list that also includes France’s Emilia Pérez, I’m Still Here (Brazil), Universal Language (Canada), Waves (Czech Republic), The Girl with the Needle (Denmark), and The Seed of the Sacred Fig from Germany. The final Oscar nominations will be announced on January 17.

In September, the FFI unanimously chose Laapataa Ladies as India’s official entry to the Oscars from a list of 29 films, including Bollywood hit Animal, Malayalam National Award winner Aattam, and Cannes winner All We Imagine As Light.