Oscars 2025 final shortlist: India’s Oscar hopes ride on Guneet Monga’s ‘Anuja’ after Kiran Rao’s ‘Laapataa Ladies’ misses the cut |

Kiran Rao‘s ‘Laapataa Ladies‘ has failed to qualify for the next round of the Oscar in the foreign film category. The top 15 films that have been shortlisted include France’s ‘Emilia Prez’, Denmark’s ‘The Girl with The Needle’, Sandhya Suri’s ‘Santosh’, to name a few.
However, there is still hope for India, thanks to a live-action short ‘Anuja’, produced by Guneet Monga Kapoor. The film addresses the issue of child labor in the garment industry and features actors like Nagesh Bhonsle.

Oscar Academy member Ujwal Nirgudkar said, “I am happy to see Anuja, a live-action short film by Suchitra Matai, being selected amongst 180 short films in this category. Guneet Monga is an Executive Producer for this film, and the star cast includes many Indian names. This shows that Indian talent is recognized worldwide.”

The other contenders are ‘Touch’ , ‘Kneecap’ , ‘Vermiglio’ , ‘Flow’ , ‘Armand’ , ‘From Ground Zero’ , ‘Dahomey’ , and ‘How to Make Millions before Grandma Dies’ .
The Academy revealed that 85 countries or regions submitted films eligible for the International Feature Film category at the 97th Academy Awards.
Titled “Lost Ladies” in English, the film is a subtly subversive feminist drama set in rural India in the early 2000s. The screenplay and dialogues for “Laapataa Ladies” were written by Sneha Desai, based on a story by Biplab Goswami, with additional dialogues by Divyanidhi Sharma.