Shekhar Kapur reacts to India’s Oscar wins: We shouldn’t wait for international validation

Which is why his reaction to India lifting two Oscars this year becomes all the more important. “I was waiting for this! After Elizabeth which was nominated in seven categories at the Oscars, I was waiting for other filmmakers to take it up, and thank God for that. It’s been years. And you shouldn’t discount the fact that All That Breathes from India didn’t win- a nomination is as good as a win. It’s a beautiful film. So two heartfelt documentaries from India, and a feature film like RRR that has kind of taken the West by storm. It won Best Original song. It was a hardcore Indian, melodramatic celebration of what we do best,” says a happy Kapur.

He also stresses upon the fact that it was imperative for the Oscars to give in to popular demand too. “It cannot just remain art cinema, then it will fall by the wayside. Rajamouli won in other awards, over directors like Steven Spielberg. Internationally they have opened their arms,” adds the director, whose film What’s Love Got To Do With It? is set for a release in India, starring Emma Thompson and Shabana Azmi.

Do we wait for international validation before recognising our own talent back home? Do awards like the Oscars wake us up to the fact that we have such great content being made?

Kapur agrees, “I think we do, and we shouldn’t. I remember, when Elizabeth was nominated for so many Oscars, everybody said ‘wow look at this director’ I said ‘wait a minute, I am the same guy who made Bandit Queen, Masoom, Mr India. Why am I suddenly this amazing director because the West has come up and said he is amazing?’ I have constantly said this, that we don’t need validation. It’s great to get an Oscar, suddenly the world knows about you, you get opportunities to work internationally. Buit I don’t think we need validation, and nobody has proven it better than Rajamouli. He has proved it so well through such an indian way of making movies, and made it so celebratory that the whole of West is saying ‘look at this’.”

Kapur also feels that validation often leaves you as an artist “trying to be who you are not.”

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‘SATISH WAS A BRILLIANT MATHEMATICIAN’

My relationship with Satish Kaushik… because he was from National School of Drama, and because he was an amazing actor, he understood acting. People used to say ‘Oh My God, if Shekhar Kapur is on a honeymoon, Satish will go with him’! That’s how people saw us. He used to live in my house for some time, we lived together. His greatest asset was his deep understanding of people, and you could see that in his performances. It came from staying at NSD, where Ebrahim Alkazi was the teacher that time. He trained them to look at the world and understand. Nobody knows that Satish was a brilliant mathematician as well. His death us such a loss, we have lost somebody who was yet to explore his potential, there was so much more.