‘All We Imagine as Light has a chance as best original screenplay’: Pan Nalin

Kani Kusruti (left) and Divya Prabha in a scene from All We Imagine as Light

Everything starts with a good movie. If your movie is good and original, it can travel. But that is just not enough. When Last Film Show (the coming-of-age drama also known as Chhello Show) became India’s official entry to the 2023 Oscars, I realised that being on the other side was a completely new experience.

The Academy Awards are voted on by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which is a group of industry professionals and I am a member. But there is a very organised ecosystem when it comes to Oscar campaigns, and your film has to be supported by three key elements according to me. The first is the studio that is going to distribute your film, which could be an OTT platform like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney, etc. Those studios get the second most important element right, the publicist.

Filmmaker Pan Nalin

Oscar campaign publicists have become extremely powerful in the last five years, as they design a whole strategy according to your movie, and that will cost you a bomb. So, money is the third element. My analysis is that, at a minimum, to run a good Oscar campaign, you need $1.7 million. You have to factor press screenings for Academy members, conferences, minimum advertisements in publications such as LA Times, Variety and others. So, while you may have a good movie, what is important is how many Academy members have watched it. And that is the biggest battle. During the Oscar season, they have 300-400 movies to watch, and the industry (which constitutes the voters) is extremely busy working. So if they watch the movie and it is good, it will stay with them.

Behind the scenes

When we were there in 2022 with Last Film Show, we were competing directly with movies from Netflix and Amazon Prime. They had a budget of $11-$12 million for the Oscar campaign. Take for instance, Emilia Pérez this year, directed by Jacques Audiard. I believe its campaign budget would be in the range of $10-$15 million. In L.A., there are places where one screening can cost you $80,000. Now that I know how the campaign works, I am surprised that we were even shortlisted.

Zoe Saldaña (centre) in a scene from Emilia Pérez

For any of the movies shortlisted, time and money are the two most important factors. It’s like any other political campaign. In my opinion, Hollywood has legalised corruption, and that is both good and bad. This means they will officially tell you, if you want a cover story, this is what it will cost you. Or do you want to be on a roundtable of directors — and who wouldn’t want to sit next to director Alejandro G. Iñárritu? But then we were presented a bill of $32,000 and I had to walk out. There were only eight directors on that roundtable finally, as seven of us didn’t have the budget. You need to be present everywhere and everything costs money.

Also, in my opinion, India should decide on their official entry by July end or early August. Then films like Reema Das’ Village Rockstars (India’s official entry to Oscars 2019), which do not have the money, can at least make use of the time to build storytelling. Also, many countries such as Italy, Ireland, South Korea, France, Germany and Denmark sanction huge amounts of money for Oscar campaigns. For them it’s like sending their athlete to the Olympics!

A still from Village Rockstars

Betting on Kapadia

So, how do films stand out in the final round? I feel it is author driven and if there is out of the box thinking, or if you have gone against the mainstream you are noticed. That is likely to happen again this year, with movies like The Brutalist.

Guy Pearce in a scene from The Brutalist

And what are the chances for Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light, as it already comes with the Cannes tag? I feel they have a chance with Best Original Screenplay and the Best Picture categories, especially if the Academy decides to have more nominations in this category this time. And perhaps Best Director.

In December 2022, documentary and feature filmmaker Pan Nalin’s Last Film Show became the fourth film in Indian cinema history to be shortlisted for the Academy Awards

As told to Rosella Stephen