Asians allege `step-motherly` treatment at Oscars

Nevada: No nominations for “Made in Asia” films has been made in this year’s 82nd Academy Awards, which will be given coming Sunday at Hollywood (California, USA). Acclaimed Indo-American statesman Rajan Zed has blamed American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for step-motherly treatment towards Asia. Asia had produced top class directors like Akira Kurosawa, Yasujiro Ozu, Satyajit Ray, etc, but Asian films were mostly ignored as compared to European films and many good Asian films even did not make the nomination, Zed, who is chairperson of Indo-American Leadership Confederation, stressed in a statement issued in Nevada (USA) today.

Though four films with Asia-focused topics have been nominated—“Kavi”, “Burma VJ”, “The Cove”, and "China`s Unnatural Disaster: The tears of Sichuan Province"—but none of these is produced in Asia. “Kavi” (Gregg Helvey), nominated in “live action short film” category, is about a boy in India who wants to go to school and play cricket but is forced to work in a brick kiln as a modern-day slave. “Burma VJ” (Anders Østergaard), nominated in “documentary feature” category, is about monks’ protest in Burma. “The Cove” (Louie Psihoyos), also nominated in “documentary feature” category, is an investigative-journalism style venture about animal abuse and human health issues revolving around dolphins in Japan. "China``s Unnatural Disaster: The tears of Sichuan Province" (Jon Alpert, Matthew O``Neill), nominated for “documentary short subject” category, is about a catastrophic earthquake hitting rural Sichuan Province in China. Zed has also asked the Academy to introduce a new award category of “Best Bollywood Film” for films made in India. He said that India had the largest film industry in the world and thus it deserved at least one category in Oscars where its movies could compete among themselves. Foreign Language Film Award at Oscars, where only one picture was accepted from each country, did not do justice to such a large industry, Zed added. ANI