EXCLUSIVE: Padmaavat, Raazi, Manto in contention for India's official entry to Oscars; announcement TOMORROW

Padmaavat, Raazi and Manto will be battling it out to become India's official entry to the Oscars 2019. The announcement will be made tomorrow i.e. September 28, 2018, at the IMPPA house.

By Pinkvilla Desk

Updated on Sep 23, 2018 | 08:30 AM IST | 842.3K

The race to the Oscars 2019 has already begun around the world, especially in India. Last year, it was Rajkummar Rao starrer Newton which was India's official entry to the Academy Awards. Alas, Newton was unable to be selected in the Best Foreign Film category. This year, there are 28 distinct films which will be contending to take the top spot as India's entry to the Oscars.

The announcement of India's official entry to the Oscars will be made tomorrow i.e. September 22, 2018. A source close to the industry revealed to Pinkvilla that the announcement will be made in the morning at the IMPPA house. There are about 28 films that are contending to be India's official entry which includes Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmaavat starring Ranveer Singh, Deepika Padukone and Shahid Kapoor, Meghna Gulzar's Raazi starring Alia Bhatt and Vicky Kaushal and Shoojit Sircar's October starring Varun Dhawan and Banita Sandhu.

There are others like Nandita Das' Manto starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Dipesh Jain's Gali Guleiyan starring Manoj Bajpayee and Rahi Anil Barve and Adesh Prasad's Tumbbad starring Sohum Shah that are also on the list.

Ravi Jadhav's Nude which courted controversy last year is one the Marathi film entries. Some of the other Marathi films include Bogda and Gulabjaam.

Vinod Kapri's film Pihu has travelled to various film festivals including Vancouver, Palm Springs, Iran, Morocco, and Germany. Pihu, which went on to win the Best Film at Morocco and was the opening film at the International Film Festival of India, Goa (2017), is also on the list of films that are vying to become India's official entry to the Oscars.

Here are some of the movies in contention as the official India entry to the Oscars:

Hindi:

Padmaavat

Raazi

October

Love Sonia

Manto

Padman

102 Not Out

Marathi

Bogda

Nude