New Delhi: This year Indians were spoilt with choices. It was a great year of Indian cinema and choosing a movie to represent the nation at the Academy Awards was definitely going to be a challenging choice for the panel headed by yesteryear actor Amol Palekar.
Aamir Khan starrer PK, SS Rajamouli's ‘Baahubali: The Beginning' and Salman Khan's blockbuster ‘Bajrangi Bhaijaan' were among the ones in which audiences placed their bets.
Yesterday, the news broke that a Marathi movie ‘Court' is going to represent India at the prestigious Academy Awards. The movie, released on 17th April 2015, was selected to be India's official submission for the 88th Oscars in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
While many appreciated this choice, there were many more who hadn't even heard about this movie. So, what is about this highly acclaimed movie that it had beaten many big ticket movies to feature at the Oscars?
The plot revolves around an old folk singer who is accused of performing an inflammatory song which allegedly provoked a sewage worker to commit suicide. The singer is arrested on grounds of abetting the suicide. The movie traces courtroom drama and brings out the flaws in the Indian judicial system.
Here are 5 unknown facts about the movie you should definitely know:
1. ‘Court' was filmed on a shoe string budget of 3.5 crores. The movie is helmed by debutant director Chaitanya Tamhane.
2. The movie premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival in September 2014. It won two prestigious awards Luigi De Laurentiis (Lion Of The Future) for Tamhane, the highest award for first-time directors; and Best Film in the Horizons category. The movie has been on an unstoppable juggernaut in the global arena of films, since then. It has 18 International awards to its name.
3. ‘Court' took three years to complete. The idea for the film struck Tamhane after he saw how a realistic drama appeals to the audiences at the film festivals. He spent the first year researching and interviewing people and another eight months to find filming locations.
4. Over 1800 people were auditioned for this movie. Vira Sathidar, who plays the protagonist Narayan Kamble is a nukkad natak actor and he still considers himself a struggling actor. The cast of ‘Court' is filled with newcomers. It took Tamhane six months to finalise his cast.
5. The film's producer Vivek Gomber is also one of the actors of the movie. He essays the role of a defence lawyer Vinay Vora.
Here is the official trailer of ‘Court':
