As 85th Academy Awards draw near, India has decided to send in Anurag Basu’s recent masterpiece Barfi to compete for nomination against seventy other films in the category for the best foreign language film. Starring Ranbir Kapoor as both speech and hearing-impaired, Priyanka Chopra as a vibrant autistic girl and Ileana D’Crus as a sympathetic Bengali girl, Barfi won the hearts of audiences both in India and abroad. With its moving narrative and superb direction, Barfi was one of the most successful movies of the year.
The prestigious award giving ceremony is scheduled to be held on the 24th of February, 2013, while the nominations are to be announced live on the January 10th of the same year. Also taking part in the Award ceremony are countries like Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Germany, Israel, Russia, Singapore and Vietnam, with Kenya joining the event for the first time with a film called ‘Nairobi Half Life’, directed by David `Tosh` Gitonga. However the winner of the previous year’s golden statuette with an entry titled “A Separation”, Iran, has decided to boycotts the event this year as a protest against the recent anti-Islam film ‘Innocence of Muslims.’
