The selection of Laapataa Ladies as India’s official entry for the Oscars 2025 feels like a win for cinema, for storytelling. Good movies and powerful stories deserve to be noticed and celebrated. The Film Federation of India selected Kiran Rao’s masterpiece among a total of 29 films.

Koimoi

Well, some of the options they were considering were good, like All We Imagine As Light – which many thought should have been chosen for the Oscars and that’s fair. And then, there were others that were…amusing? The list had films like Animal, Chota Bheem And The Curse Of Damyaan, and Kalki 2898 AD, among others. Naturally, it has caught attention online. However, before we see what people are really saying, here’s a complete list of options.

Not just this, while Laapata Ladies getting chosen is great, the citation FFI provided for it, is also pretty questionable. I mean, in their citation, they’ve said, and I quote, “Indian women are a strange mixture of submission and dominance”.

So, overall, the entire affair has been amusing at best, with some glimpses of hope. But there’s a lot that people have said online. Take a look –

This list feels very unserious. It’s not every day you expect to see a film like All We Imagine As Light (a film that scripted history at Cannes) and Animal in the same list, a list of movies that could potentially be representing the Indian cinema at the Oscars.