Water nominated for Oscar honours

Deepa Mehta's film Water, a tale about the plight of Hindu widows in the 1930s, was on Tuesday nominated along with four other films in the Best Foreign Language Film category for the Oscars this year. The nominations to the 79th Annual Academy Awards were announced at the Samuel Goldwyn Theatre in Beverly Hills. The other four films which won nominations are: After The Wedding (Denmark), Days of Glory (Algeria), The Lives of Others (Germany) and Pan’s Labyrinth (Mexico). Water, the final part of Mehta's trilogy which includes Earth and Fire, has been nominated as Canada's official entry for the awards. The film is set in the 1930s and focuses on the difficult times faced by widows abandoned by their families and living on the banks of the Ganga. "I am so thrilled with this news. This film has meant so much to me, we have seen so much, that to have it all end in such a way is best thing I could have asked for," Mehta said over phone from her residence in Canada. Deepa Mehta had intended to make the film in 2000 and wanted to shoot it in Varanasi, but was forced to call of the shooting after Sangh Parivar outfitsobjected to the subject of the film. The film originally starred Akshay Kumar, Nandita Das and Shabana Azmi but Mehta decided to re-shoot it with a different cast in 2005 in Sri Lanka with John Abraham, Lisa Ray and Seema Biswas in the lead roles. Speaking to TOI, John Abraham said,"The credit for this nomination goes to Deepa Mehta and the entire team of Water." John plans to go for the promotion of the film to America. When asked about the criticism he received for his performance in the film, he said,"I have got nothing to say to that, but I know my audience is with me." India had sent Rakyesh Mehra's film Rang De Basanti as its entry, but it failed to make it to the top 10 in the foreign film category.
SOURCE :THE TIMES OF INDIA