Just days after missing out on becoming India's official entry for the 2027 Oscars, Naga film Angh has found another route to the Academy Awards. Theja Rio's film recently won the Platform Prize at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), making it eligible for consideration in the International Feature Film category at the 2027 Oscars under the Academy's new rules. Angh is not an Oscar nominee yet, but its TIFF win gives it a direct route into the Academy's consideration process.
The development comes soon after Marathi film Gondhal was chosen as India's official entry for the 99th Academy Awards by the Film Federation of India (FFI). Angh was among the films considered by the 14-member jury, with jury member Vivek Vaswani telling NDTV that it was the second choice.
Explaining why Angh did not make the cut, Vaswani said one of the concerns was that the film had not yet been released. He said the jury was worried that if the film faced a technical issue and failed to release before September 30, India could potentially be left without an official Oscar entry. He also said Angh received 11 votes from the 14-member jury.
The makers of Angh, however, have strongly questioned that reasoning.
Speaking exclusively to NDTV, director Theja Rio, producer Nancy Nisa Beso and Gaurav Dhingra, founder of Jungle Book Studio and distributor of the film, said they had already submitted the required paperwork and communicated their release plans to the FFI.
Nancy said the team was contacted by the FFI on the very day the Oscar entry was being announced, asking for additional documents.
"Abira, we submitted all our papers. In fact, on the very day they were announcing the selection, they got in touch with us saying, 'Okay, we have this paper missing. We have that paper missing,'" Nancy said.
She said that because of the time difference, she and Gaurav were sending the paperwork at around 3 or 4 in the morning. According to Nancy, the team had already spoken to UFO and the theatre where Angh was scheduled to release and had communicated those details to the FFI before the results were declared.
"The rules and regulations clearly state that we have to release the film before September 30 for seven days," she said, adding that they had an undertaking for the release, confirmation from the cinema and other documentation.
Nancy said she would have understood if the decision had been based purely on merit or on the jury's view of which film best represented India.
"I understand if the decision was based on merit, or on what they felt they wanted to project about India. If they chose another film for that reason, that's completely understandable. But to say that our paperwork was incomplete is not the nicest thing to say," she said.
Vaswani's explanation, however, was that the concern was not that the paperwork did not exist. Rather, the jury was worried about what would happen if Angh failed to release because of a technical glitch or another unforeseen circumstance.
Gaurav questioned whether a hypothetical possibility should have influenced the selection.
"But then what? What have they achieved by doing this? Nothing, right?" he said.
He argued that unforeseen circumstances could happen at any point and said the team had already made the film and was making every effort to ensure its release.
Theja also questioned the timing of the decision. If September 30 was the release deadline, he asked why the possibility of a release-related issue should have been decisive when there were still dates remaining before the deadline.
"If, at the end of the day, a hypothetical situation is going to be conclusive, then what's the point of having a deadline until September 30?" Theja said.
He added that the FFI could have brought the deadline forward if the release date was going to determine the selection.
"There were still dates remaining till September 30, and yet the announcement came two weeks before that," he said.
Angh is now set to release before September 30. While Gondhal remains India's official submission, Angh has independently secured its Oscar eligibility through its TIFF Platform Prize win, meaning both films now have a route into the 2027 Academy Awards' International Feature Film race, albeit through different paths.
ALSO READ: Why Angh Didn't Become India's Oscar Entry, But Can Still Make It To Academy Awards
