Can Kiran Rao's Laapataa Ladies, freshly re-titled Lost Ladies, crack into the highly competitive race for a nomination at the Best International Feature category next year at the Academy Awards? Rao, along with producer Aamir Khan, have just begun their campaigning for the slice-of-life drama, with a private screening hosted by chef Vikas Khanna in New York on Tuesday. But the road to the Oscars will be a tough one to beat. 

Of course Aamir Khan is no stranger to the Oscar campaigning, given that his 2001 release Lagaan made the cut to become a nominee. However, the scenario has changed strategically over the last two decades. Kiran Rao gave an idea how, in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter India. She said, “Back then screenings were the only option, and then you relied on word of mouth to get to people to come to your screenings. Now there is a plethora of things online that they can watch. So the campaigning takes a much bigger part of your budget.”

What is Oscar campaigning?

This campaigning is more than just the merit of the film. It is a culmination of so many factors: word of mouth online, film festival presence, as well as its edge during the precursor awards- especially the critics circles and the other guild awards. For those keeping track, the predictions arrive shortly after the big three film festivals- Cannes, Venice and Toronto, are over. With Cannes this year, the major contender is France with Emilia Pérez, which won two big awards- the Jury Prize and Best Actress for its cast, including Selena Gomez. The other film from Cannes that follows is The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which won the Special Award for Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof. It will be submitted from Germany, springing new attention for the film's narrative. Venice served as a breakout for Brazilian film I'm Still Here, which also played well at other film festivals, winning a couple of Audience Awards.

The word of mouth is often laced with an added layer of narrative, that ends up giving the film a slight edge over its competitors. For example, last year's winner was The Zone of Interest, a film that stayed in the discussion ever since it opened to thunderous reviews in Cannes, where it received the Grand Prix. The film got a lot of love from the Academy, snagging up nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and also winning Best Sound.

This narrative was already in place for the other Indian film in contention for the selection this year: Payal Kapadia's All We Imagine as Light. The first film in contention at Cannes in 3 decades, which also scooped the Grand Prix, and scored universally positive reviews upon its premiere. What's more, the Mumbai-based drama was acquired for US release by Sideshow and Janus films, the distributor that was responsible for the Oscar-winning film Drive My Car a few years ago. The point here is that Kapadia's film would not even have to think about strategizing additional buzz on the film to make it visible. It already was.

With these films in the discussion among critics circles and gaining momentum with how well they played at the top film festivals of this year, the campaigning only adds another layer of edge over the dozen other submissions that will vouch for the top 5 spots in the category. "Lagaan got nominated because Sony Pictures Classics did the campaign with Aamir. And The Lunchbox would have been nominated agar India select karta (if India would have selected it), the film could have gone far. And if we do good campaigns, hum paanch saal mein nominate bhi ho jayenge, jeet bhi jayenge (we can not only get a nomination, but also win). But as of now, we don’t do good campaigns," noted Guneet Monga in an interview with The Times of India earlier this year. Guneet was the producer of The Elephant Whisperers, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short Film two years ago.

Nonetheless, Laapaata Ladies has a long, expensive, and busy few months ahead with its campaigning strategies, if it wants to get a serious shot at nomination. Hope it does not get ‘lost’ in that journey.

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