Kabir's Oscar disappointment!

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Kabir Bedi reveals his thoughts on the Oscars this year.

"I think this is the most disappointing Oscar winner line-up ever. None of the films are of the calibre that you’d expect from the Oscars," says Kabir Bedi, member of the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences there. Of course, he does concede that some great performances have been acknowledged. "I think British actor Daniel Day-Lewis who got the Best Actor Oscar for There Will Be Blood was very good. All the individual performances except for the Best Supporting Actress were excellent. What I find scandalous is that Elizabeth: The Golden Age was nowhere in the Best Picture or the Best Director categories. Shekhar Kapur’s film stood head and shoulders above the very mediocre line-up," he asserts.

Of course, Bedi’s happy that there is an Indian connection in the winner line-up Elizabeth for Best Costume Design and Ratatouille for Best Animation Feature Film, which has special effects by India-born animation artist Apurva Shah. "I’ve congratulated both of them," he smiles.

And then the inevitable question springs up what goes wrong with the selection of films at India’s end, for the Oscars? Or, as Mira Nair has alleged, is there a colour bias there? Says Kabir, "I don’t think so, because many of the Oscar winners have been non-Americans too. The bias is towards a more conservative bent of mind or even against the independent movies that don’t get a studio back-up."

And for Indian films that strive to find a place in the foreign films category, Bedi says, "You need to have a good PR and a good advertising budget that brings it to the attention of the jury members there. And then, the film must be universal in its message, instead of being confined to the sensibilities of its own country."