Anurag Basu’s Barfi! did magic at the box office, and now, the film headlining Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D’Cruz, makes its entry into the 85th Academy Awards 2013 in the Best Foreign Language Film category.
Kahaani headlining Vidya Balan and Paan Singh Tomar headlining Irrfan Khan were also in contention with Barfi!
The decision was taken at a Film Federation of India (FFI) meeting in Hyderabad Saturday night. “‘Barfi!’ has indeed been chosen as the country’s official entry this year,” FFI secretary general Suparn Sen said.
This awesome news has made the makers of the film and the actors in it jump with joy.
Sharing her excitement with her Twitter fans, Priyanka tweeted,
“Yaaaaaay!!India’s official entry to the Oscars!!!Anurag sir,RK,Ills,ronnie,Sid n all!wish I was in India to share this!Go team! #BarfiOscars” Priyanka wrote soon after hearing the news.
Priyanka is currently busy wrapping up her debut album, in LA.
Siddharth Roy Kapur, managing director – Studios, Disney UTV, said in a statement, “We are honoured that ‘Barfi!’ has been selected to represent India as its official entry to the Academy Awards 2013. ‘Barfi!’ is very close to the hearts of all of us at UTV, and it gives us great satisfaction that a film we have developed and nurtured from its inception has met with so much love from audiences and critics worldwide.”
“An added source of pride is that this is the fourth UTV film in the last seven years to have been selected to represent India at the Academy awards; our earlier selections being ‘Rang De Basanti’ (2006), ‘Harishchandrachi Factory’ (2009) and ‘Peepli Live’ (2010),” he added.
Barfi! released Sep 14,continues to run to packed houses.