Rajamouli, Ram Charan, and Jr NTR’s RRR is in contention for Oscars 2023 in general category. Given the kind of reception the film got at Golden Globes(Naatu Naatu - Best Song Award), and New York Critics Circle Award(Best International Film award), it could well stand a chance at the Oscars.
Shobu Yarlagadda, the producer of Baahubali, who had associated with Rajamouli before RRR has come up with an explanatory story on RRR’s Oscars run.
The Academy has around 10,000 members from around the world, mostly in US and around 40 or so members from India. These members belong to one of the 17 branches of the Academy based on their craft, like editing, sound etc. There are 16 crafts and 17th branch is non technical.
All the nearly 10,000 members of the Academy then get to vote on the nominated films. And the film with most votes in each category wins the Oscar in that category, Shobu stated.
This involves many months of campaign starting sometimes 6 months before the Oscars. There also needs to be some organic buzz and appreciation to build traction.
Obviously this calls for significant investment in time and resources and is not easy. Hollywood studios are used to this as they do it year on year but for films from India it can be very daunting and a lot of learning to understand and execute a succesful campaign, he added.
300+ films from across the world met this criteria including several from India. Some of the Indian films include #RRR, Kantara, Gangubai Kathiawadi, The Kashmir Files, Me Vasantrao, Tuzhya Sathi Kahi Hi, Rocketry: The Nambi Effect, Iravin Nizhal, & Vikrant Rona.
All active and life members of the Academy will vote on these nominated films in each category and the winners take home the Oscars. This year the event will be held on March 12th in Los Angeles.
