FFI’s Oscar Choice Sparks Outrage: Hansal Mehta, Ricky Kej Share Fierce Reactions

Famous filmmaker Hansal Mehta and composer Ricky Kej openly expressed their disappointment with the Film Federation of India (FFI) after Kiran Rao’s satire Laapataa Ladies was not shortlisted for the Best International Feature category at the 2025 Oscars. Hansal sarcastically highlighted the federation’s consistently poor track record and criticised its questionable selection of films over the years.

Hansal Sarcastic Response on X

Late Tuesday night, Hansal shared the shortlist for the Best International Feature category at the 97th Academy Awards on his X handle. He included a sarcastic caption: “Film Federation of India does it again! Their strike rate and selection of films year after year is impeccable.”

Beneath the post, many people commented saying: “I strongly feel, based on the film as well as the traction #AWIAL has got (Cannes, Gotham, Spirit, Golden Globes, etc), it would have gotten a Nomination this year. FFI’s consistency with backing the wrong film (like The Good Road instead of The Lunchbox) is actually unbelievable.”

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Others commented saying: “Indian films Laapata!”

Ricky Kej’s Response on X

Grammy Award-winning composer Ricky Kej also took to his X account today morning to share some posters for Laapataa Ladies. He also dropped a long note in the caption about it that said: “So, the @TheAcademy Oscars shortlist is out. #LaapataaLadies is a very well made, entertaining movie (I enjoyed it), but was absolutely the wrong choice to represent India for the best #InternationalFeatureFilm category. As expected, it lost. When are we going to realize.. year after year.. we are choosing the wrong films. There are so many excellent movies made, and we should be winning the #InternationalFeatureFilm category every year! Unfortunately we live in a “Mainstream Bollywood” bubble, where we cannot look beyond films that we ourselves find entertaining. Instead we should just look for good films made by film-makers who are uncompromising in their art.. low budget or big budget.. star or no star.. just great artistic cinema. Below is the poster of #LaapataaLadies, I am sure most academy voting members dismissed the film just by looking at these.”

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