What’s India’s chance To Win Oscars 2022?

Once again, India has faced a disappointment in the nominations of the Academy Awards. None of our feature films managed to get nominated for the Oscars. Meanwhile, we got some sort of respite in the form of the documentary feature ‘Writing with Fire.’ Directed by Sushmit Ghosh and Rintu Thomas, this documentary has been nominated in the Best Documentary Feature category.

‘Writing with Fire’ traces the journey of Khabar Lahariya, a community newspaper that is published in various dialects like Bundeli, Avadhi, and Bajjika. This newspaper is run by the Dalit community in Bihar’s Sitamarhi district and Uttar Pradesh’s Banda district.

This documentary was supported by Sundance Institute and it was shot for over five years. It had its World Premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival and won two awards in the competition, The Audience Award and a Special Jury Award: Impact for Change in the World Cinema Documentary.

Until now, Writing with Fire was premiered in many film festivals across the world and won more than 28 International Awards.

This also happens to be the first Indian documentary to get nominated in the Best Documentary Feature category. It was one of the five documentaries that got nominated from a shortlist of 15 other features. A total of 138 documentaries were considered for Oscar nominations initially. Thus, it is indeed a big achievement for both Sushmit and Rintu.

We have to see how it fares in the final competition. The Oscar Awards ceremony will be held on March 27th in Los Angeles.