Laapataa Ladies at Oscars: Remarks on women by film committee spark outrage

As Kiran Rao’s film ‘Laapataa Ladies’ makes it as India’s official entry for the 2025 Oscars, the citation of Film Federation of India’s all-male jury has sparked outrage online, with netizens claiming goes against the very idea of the movie.
“Indian women are a strange mixture of submission and dominance. Well-defined, powerful characters in one world, Laapataa Ladies (Hindi) captures this diversity perfectly, though in a semi-idyllic world and in a tongue-in-cheek way,” the FFI’s citation read.
Ironically, Laapataa Ladies is a humorous take on “patriarchy” and was chosen from 29 films.
Appalled by the citation, filmmaker and poet Leena Manimekalai said, “tongue in cheek dedication to all women who can now happily desire to be home makers as well as rebel and be entrepreneurially inclined!!!”
“Best Jury citation ever read! Film Federation is what? Grand Patriarch wanting to wear jeans?” she added.
Ashameera Aiyappan, a film journalist said, “Only love for Laapataa Ladies, but seriously what in the hell is this citation?”
Another filmmaker Poulomi Das had more to say about the selection of the jury which refused to “think beyond Hindi cinema” and chose Laapataa Ladies over Payal Kapadia’s ‘All we imagine as light’, a movie that won the Cannes Grand Prix this year.
“LAAPATAA LADIES being chosen as India’s official Oscar entry when you also have ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT is proof of not just the vague selection process that refuses to think beyond Hindi cinema but also how illiterate the apex body is about how these norms work in the first place,” she said.
“Before winning the 2023 Oscar for Best International Feature, THE ZONE OF INTEREST won the Cannes Grand Prix, the same award that ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT won this year,” she added.
Das also shared that the 13-member jury that makes these decisions comprises of Indian film producers, exhibitors, distributors, and studio owners.
“Jahnu Barua, who headed the jury, last made a film in 2018,” she highlighted.
However, Das also found the FFI jury citation problematic and said: “’Indian women are a strange mixture of submission and dominance’ the FFI says in its jury citation for LAAPATAA LADIES. You can’t make this s**t up,” she said.
“Reading this the first thing that came to my mind was the railway platform vendor women who say the women have been defrauded for millennia in the name of ‘cultured women’,” a social media user cited a scene from the movie.