At Kol meet, jury picks Ishan Khattar-starrer ‘Homebound’ as India’s Oscars bet
Times of India | 20 September 2025's ‘Homebound' has been picked as India's official entry to the 98th Academy awards in the Best International Feature Film category.
This was announced in Kolkata — chosen as the venue for the Oscars deliberations third time in six years — on Friday by N Chandra, chairman of the 14-member selection committee set up by Film Federation of India.
‘Homebound' — a Hindi film on the friendship between two young job-seekers of marginalised communities — stars Vishal Jetwa, Ishaan Khatter and Janhvi Kapoor. It premiered at Cannes this year in the Un Certain Regard category, and clinched the second runner-up spot at Toronto International Film Festival's International People's Choice award.
Saying that the film was a unanimous choice, director and producer Chandra said, "The film's international success speaks for itself. It has great story telling and stellar performances. We could only send one film and of the 24 films, we thought this was marginally better. It was very a difficult choice to make."
This is the fourth time in FFI's history that Kolkata was chosen as the city for Oscar jury deliberations.
The first was in 1957 when ‘Mother India' was chosen as the Indian entry. "In a span of six years, Kolkata has thrice been chosen as the location. The first was in 2019, chaired by fimmaker Aparna Sen. The second was in 2021, with Shaji Karun as chairman. This completely debunks the perceptions about Kolkata being unfriendly towards organising such events.
I wish at least one Bengali film was in contention this year. While the merit of the film is important, it is equally crucial to send a film that will have the marketing power to knock the right doors," said FFI president Firdausul Hasan.
Along with the creative strength of ‘Homebound', its "power to promote" was also considered, said jury chairman N Chandra. Elated about his Kolkata visit, Chandra said, "My first film ‘Ankush' had Arjun Chakraborty among the cast."
Of the 24 contributions, 11 films were Hindi, five were Marathi, and five were Telugu. There was one Manipuri film, one in Kannada. Silent film ‘Meta The Dazzling Girl' was also in contention.
The Chandra-led selection committee had writer Ranbir Pushp, art director Angelica Monica Bhowmick, producer and director Abhishek Jain, producer Surinder Singh, writer Ratnottama Sengupta, editor Apurva Motiwale, producer Akshay Kumar Parija, editor Suresh Urs, director-producer Tammareddy Bharadwaja, actor Aimee Baruah, lyricist-director RV Uthayakumar, director Rajiv Anchal and journalist Rajiv Vijayakar.
Four among the members were from Mumbai, while two were from Kolkata.
