Guneet Monga reveals how SS Rajamouli's ‘RRR’ won an Oscar without being India’s official entry

SS Rajamouli and Guneet Monga

Naatu Naatu, the track from the blockbuster film RRR, made history by becoming the first Telugu song ever nominated for the Academy Award in the 'Original Song' category. It won the award trumping big names such as Rihanna and Lady Gaga. This unprecedented recognition was a testament to the song's energy and mind-blowing choreography that had the whole world dancing along.

SS Rajamouli Birthday 2024: How RRR won an Oscar

Academy Award-winning producer Guneet Monga Kapoor, who brought home two Oscars with documentary short films ‘The Elephant Whisperers' and ‘Period. End of Sentence', sat down for Mid-day's podcast series The Bombay Film Story to discuss how India can win the prestigious global validation by simply investing in an American distributor.

Guneet stated, "What ‘RRR' did was phenomenal. They actually brought distributors on board and re-released the film and spent a lot of money doing the main Oscar race, because they were not India's entry. What ‘RRR' did was opening insane amount of doors for Indian cinema. And that needed a lot of capital, a huge amount of capital, and a huge amount that ‘I'm going to go all in and play the bigger game'."

Guneet concluded by saying, "Nomination is a very, very big deal, and to win is like out of dreams. The toughest part of the Oscars is to go from shortlist to nomination. Even to get to the shortlist, there is work that needs to be done, which we here in our feature film category don't really understand. So somehow the committee here constantly feels we should send our best film, what they think is the best film, as if they are giving the award. Think about it as cricket, right? If you are doing something at your World Cup level, you will send your best person who is able to win with that and you are constantly shuffling your team. You have to be able to send a film that has American distribution, period."

About SS Rajamouli's RRR

RRR is a fictitious story about two legendary revolutionaries and their journey away from home before they started fighting for their country in the 1920s. The Telugu-language period action drama film is produced by D. V. V. Danayya of DVV Entertainments. ‘RRR' released on 25th March 2022.