Anurag Kashyap spills his love for India’s Oscar entry Newton in three tweets. Here they are

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap fired off a string of tweets in praise of Newton, the political satire starring Rajkummar Rao that was announced as India’s official entry to the Oscars on Friday.

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap fired off a string of tweets in praise of Newton, the political satire film which was selected as India’s official entry to the Oscars on Friday.

Rajkummar Rao in a still from India’s official Oscar entry, Newton.

Kashyap, a self-styled champion of cinema, said that he was “super happy” that a “ deserving” film was selected as India’s submission to the Academy Awards, which will commence screenings for foreign language films from October.

Kashyap also made a reference to some rumours that Newton was a remake of - or at least partially inspired by - 2001 Iranian film, Secret Ballot. Defending Newton, Kashyap wrote: “Newton” is as much a copy of Secret Ballot as The Avengers is of Watan Ke Rakhwale.”

Continuing his argument that Newton was a worthy choice, Kashyap said that the film, directed by Amit V Masurkar, won an award at the Berlin Film Festival - it won the International Federation of Art Cinemas (CICAE) award in its section.

“Newton is an award winner from Berlin Fest and I can promise you those curators watch more films in a year than rest of us do in a lifetime,” Kashyap said.

Newton’s selection as India’s official Oscar entry came at an opportune moment. The film was released in theatres on the same Friday, and witnessed a stunning 162% growth at the box office between Friday and Saturday. According to trade analyst Taran Adarsh, the film has collected Rs 3.48 crore in two days of release.

The 90th Academy Awards will take place in March, 2018. Voting for foreign language films begins in October. So far, over 70 films have been submitted, with the total expected to exceed 85 by the time the deadline for submissions ends on September 30.

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