On Wednesday, the Malayalam film 2018 – Everyone is a Hero was selected as India’s official entry to the 96th Academy Awards under the foreign language category by a committee that congregated in Chennai. The committee was led by noted filmmaker Mr Girish Kasaravalli.
2018 – Everyone is a Hero has been chosen from as many as 22 films in contention. The shortlisted films comprised a fair representation of the Tamil language films that were released in the year. The Tamil films shortlisted include Viduthalai Part 1, Maamannan, Vaathi and August 16, 1947. Apart from the Tamil, the final list consists of a significant number of Hindi language films, as many as 11 films, 4 Telugu films and 2 Marathi films. Interestingly, 2018 was the only Malayalam film in the final list.
Regarding winning the prestigious Award, a credit is long delayed for India. Three films, Mother India, Salaam Bombay and Lagaan, were the only films that made it to the nomination list.
It is to be noted that as many as 10 films were earlier picked for the Oscars as the nation’s official entry from Tamil over the years, including Deiva Magan, Nayakan, Anjali, Thevar Magan, Kuruthipunal, Indian, Jeans, Hey Ram, Visaranai, and Pebbles.