Ujwal Nirgudkar, is the first Indian to be selected as a member of the Oscar academy under the technical advisor branch. He is a technical advisor for the National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) who returned from the Oscars at Dolby theatre, Los Angeles last week. Nirgudkar, who is known for his contributions to film processing, said that India should look beyond the foreign language film category. “I went to the Oscars for the first time, as a member at the technical craft of the academy. Short films, documentaries, animated shorts and animated feature films, we have a definite shot at the first three categories. Other than main stream awards, we also look at student film awards which are held in September,”said Nirgudkar. He added that the Nicole screen writing competition, an opportunity for India to showcase its talent, has opened its entries on March 5.”
“Subtitles is the only way for our films to reach Oscar juries. We need to translate and have subtitles for the American juries. Subtitles need to be correct and in American spoken English instead of colonial English,” said Nirgudkar.
He felt that although the live action short documentary was shot in Indian village, the award does not come to us, as the producer was a foreigner. “We also can produce short films and also send as entries to these categories which are unknown to us. We have always concentrated on only one category, foreign language films” he said.
Animation and colour correction for many of the Hollywood films is done in India but according to Nirgudkar, “We don’t make use of it for our own movies and we should also concentrate on Indian regional cinema which has good content and can bring us an Oscar.”