Kangana Ranaut congratulates team 'Jallikattu' as it becomes India's official Oscar entry

Malayalam feature Jallikattu, directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery, has been selected as India's official entry for the International Feature Film category at the Oscars, the Film Federation of India (FFI) announced on Thursday. Kangana Ranaut took to her Twitter handle to congratulate the team.

The Bollywood actor also took a dig at the 'movie mafia' and wrote that 'bashing is finally yielding results'. 

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All the scrutiny/ bashing Bullydawood gang got is finally yielding some results, Indian films aren’t just about 4 film families, movie mafia gang is hiding in their houses and letting juries do their job and congratulations team #Jallikattu https://t.co/kI9sY4BumE

— Kangana Ranaut (@KanganaTeam) November 25, 2020

The film, which was unanimously chosen from 27 entries across Hindi, Odiya, Marathi and other languages, follows a bull that escapes from a slaughterhouse in a hilly remote village and the entire village men gather to hunt down the animal.

Jallikattu is based on the short story by Hareesh and stars Antony Varghese, Chemban Vinod Jose, Sabumon Abdusamad and Santhy Balachandran. The film had its premiere on September 6, 2019 at the 2019 Toronto International Film Festival and received widespread critical acclaim.

"It is a film that really brings out the raw problems which are there in human beings, that is we are worse than animals," filmmaker Rahul Rawail, Chairman, Jury Board, Film Federation of India, told reporters in an online press conference. "The whole film talks about an animal that has run amok in a butcher''s shop... The film has been depicted wonderfully and it has been shot very well. The emotion that comes out really moved all of us to have it selected," the chairman said.

Pellissery also won the best director trophy at the 50th International Film Festival of India last year.

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(with PTI inputs)