'It's an amazing opportunity", Zoya Akhtar on Oscar nomination

The world is shrinking and one has to compete with the best, says director Zoya Akhtar as she gears up for Gully Boy's Oscar campaign. After enthralling audiences and winning hearts at the box office, ‘Gully Boy’ has been announced as India’s official entry to the Academy Awards next year.

In her interview with PTI, Zoya Akhtar said she is not fazed by the competition but looks at it as an amazing opportunity.

"Even meeting people there, opens your mind in so many ways. It's an amazing opportunity. The world's getting smaller and we are a huge industry. We all are going to be out there at some point or the other,"."Your country has selected you and now you have to go in there and give your best shot. You have to represent what your country stands for, what the film stands for and what it's context is. You call it competition, I call it that club, where best from different countries are there," she added.

The director said the aim is to hold as many screenings of the film as possible to familiarise the Academy voters with it and further asserted that this movie was her attempt to look at the class system in India. 

"It is a film about the class system, where we are functioning in a way where certain people are kind of trapped in it and find it difficult to break out. That is what the film is about, everything else is the backdrop," she said. 

READ: Gully Boy: Zoya Akhtar 'overwhelmed' as film nominated for Oscars

Addressing the thought about a sequel, the director vehemently said that she wants to explore a different realm and explore the hip-hop genre further. 

"We want to do something in the hip-hop space but we don't know if we will have a part two. It will be another chapter."
There were reports that Zoya had bought the rights for Martin Scorsese's gangster movies "The Departed" and "Gangs of New York" and had approached Ranveer for the same.

Speaking about the character, Zoya Akhtar said she looks at such characters as people who are broken and operate under a code that is sometimes stronger than the one that society imposes.

"This is kind of a dual existence where you are harsh but at the same time emotional. You are here because you have experienced trauma. It is a broken character but a very interesting and exciting one."

READ:Oscars Academy invites Anupam Kher, Anurag Kashyap Zoya Akhtar & Ritesh Batra to join; only 4 invites for Indians versus 2018's 20

Farhan Akhtar And Javed Akhtar Congratulate Zoya Akhtar

Following the massive announcement, Zoya's father and veteran playwright Javed Akhtar penned a heartfelt post on Twitter congratulating her. The proud father who is overwhelmed by his daughter's achievement exuded his happiness on social media and wrote, "I am sure that fellow Indians will be happy and proud to know that my daughter Zoya Akhtar who is a well-known writer-director has been offered the membership of Oscar academy which is rare honor."

Not only her father but her brother and actor Farhan Akhtar also congratulated the filmmaker for her new stint.
 

READ: Zoya Akhtar's 'Ghost Stories' short to feature Jahnvi Kapoor, Vijay Verma

READ: Gully Boy: Alia Bhatt calls it 'big deal' as film is chosen for Oscars

(With inputs from PTI)