Feature films with Indian backers garner 13 Oscar nominations

Pawel Pawlikowski's bleak yet beautiful black-and-white film Zimna Wojna (Cold War) has become the first from Poland to get three nominations, including in the Best Director and Best Foreign Language Film categories, for next month's 91st Academy Awards.

The third nomination for the film has come for the Best Cinematography award. Interestingly, in all three categories, the film comes up against Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron's Netflix release Roma, another black and white personal memoir film.

Pawlikowski won the Best Director award for Cold War at the Cannes film festival last year, where the film had its world premiere. His previous feature Ida (2013) won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2015.

Cinestaan Film Company, a Mumbai-based boutique studio and a sister company of Cinestaan Digital Private Limited, which runs this website, is one of the financiers of Cold War.

The film, a love story about the intertwining of personal and political histories, is based upon the story of the filmmaker's own parents and moves across four European countries at the height of the Cold War.

Cuaron's Roma, which tied with Olivia Colman's period drama The Favourite with 10 nominations each for the 91st Academy awards, is also a personal account, a memoir of the filmmaker's childhood in Mexico in the 1970s. Cuaron is also among the Best Director nominees while Roma is one of the five candidates for the Best Foreign Language Film award.

Kumail Nanjiani and Tracee Ellis Ross announced the nominations for the Oscars on Tuesday on behalf of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

While India's official entry, Rima Das's Assamese film Village Rockstars, failed to make it to the initial shortlist, Period. End Of Sentence, an India-set film on the taboos around menstruation and featuring the real 'Pad Man' Arunachalam Muruganantham, has made it to the top five nominees of the Documentary Short Subject category.

Three films, Green Book, First Man and Ready Player One, backed by the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Entertainment, also scored a total of 10 nominations.

Green Book finds a spot in five categories, First Man has got four and Ready Player One features in one category for the awards which will be announced on 24 February and aired in India on Star Movies.

"It is exciting news and truly says a lot about how a compelling story always works. We are extremely proud to be associated with these films and we hope for the best," Shibashish Sarkar, chief operating officer, Reliance Entertainment, told the IANS news agency. 

The buzz around Cuaron's Netflix film Roma is likely to get a fillip with the news of 10 nominations, including for Best Picture and Best Actress in a Leading Role (Yalitza Aparicio).

In an interview with IANS, Cuaron had recently said: "When a film like Roma is recognized for awards, I feel the importance of that is to open the dialogue for diversity... diversity in which people are open to embrace a human experience even if it is shown in the form of other people that aren't like you."

Diversity is certainly in full bloom in the Oscar nomination list this time.

Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's A Star Is Born and the Christian Bale-starrer Vice have eight nominations each, followed by seven for Black Panther, which becomes the first superhero film to make it to the Best Picture category.

BlacKkKlansman, a story about an African-American police officer, has scored six nominations, followed by five for Bohemian Rhapsody and Green Book, and a tie for First Man and Mary Poppins Returns with four mentions each.

Following are some of the nominations:

Best Picture: Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Green Book, Roma, A Star Is Born and Vice

Best Director: Alfonso Cuaron (Roma), Yorgos Lanthimos (The Favourite), Spike Lee (BlacKkKlansman), Adam McKay (Vice) and Pawel Pawlikowski (Cold War)

Best Actor in a Leading Role: Christian Bale (Vice), Bradley Cooper (A Star Is Born), Willem Dafoe (At Eternity's Gate), Rami Malek (Bohemian Rhapsody) and Viggo Mortensen (Green Book)

Best Actress in a Leading Role: Yalitza Aparicio (Roma), Glenn Close (The Wife), Olivia Colman (The Favourite), Lady Gaga (A Star Is Born) and Melissa McCarthy (Can You Ever Forgive Me?)

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Amy Adams (Vice), Marina De Tavira (Roma), Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk), Emma Stone (The Favourite) and Rachel Weisz (The Favourite)

Best Actor in a Supporting Role: Mahershala Ali (Green Book), Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman), Sam Elliott (A Star Is Born), Richard E Grant (Can You Ever Forgive Me) and Sam Rockwell (Vice).

Best Foreign Language Film: Capernaum (Lebanon), Cold War (Poland), Never Look Away (Germany), Roma (Mexico) and Shoplifters (Japan)

Best Original Screenplay: The Favourite (Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara), First Reformed (Paul Schrader), Green Book (Nick Vallelonga, Brian Currie, Peter Farrelly), Roma (Alfonso Cuarón) and Vice (Adam McKay)

Best Adapted Screenplay: A Star Is Born (Eric Roth, Will Fetters & Bradley Cooper), The Ballad Of Buster Scruggs (Joel Coen & Ethan Coen), BlacKkKlansman (Charlie Wachtel & David Rabinowitz and Kevin Willmott & Spike Lee), If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins), Can You Ever Forgive Me? (Nicole Holofcener and Jeff Whitty)

Best Cinematography: The Favourite (Robbie Ryan), Never Look Away (Caleb Deschanel), Roma (Alfonso Cuaron), A Star Is Born (Matty Libatique), Cold War (Lukasz Zal)

Best Costume Design: Black Panther, The Favourite, Mary Poppins Returns, Mary Queen Of Scots and The Ballad Of Buster Scrubs

Best Film Editing: Blackkklansman, Bohemian Rhapsody, The Favourite, Green Book and Vice

Best Original Score: Black Panther, Blackkklansman, If Beale Street Could Talk, Mary Poppins Returns and Isle Of Dogs

Best Animation Short Film: Bao, Late Afternoon, Animal Behaviour, Bird Karma and One Small Step

Best Live-Action Short Film: Skin, Mother, Detainment, Marguerite and Fauve

Best Sound Editing: First Man, A Quiet Place, Bohemian Rhapsody, Black Panther and Roma

Best Sound Mixing: A Star Is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, First Man, Roma and Black Panther

With inputs from IANS