‘Jai Bhim’ is not the first Indian film to be featured in Oscars’ YouTube channel - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
January 20, 2022
A post is being widely shared on social media claiming that Jai Bhim had become the first Indian movie to be featured on the official YouTube channel of Oscars. Let us fact-check the claim made in the post.
Claim: Jai Bhim is the first Indian movie to be featured on the YouTube channel of Oscars.
Fact: Jai Bhim is the first Tamil movie to have been featured in the official YouTube channel of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, under its ‘Scene At The Academy’ category. ‘Two’, a shortfilm by Satyajit Ray was featured in Oscars’ YouTube channel in 2016, as part of a restoration project. ‘Scene At The Academy’ section on the official ‘Oscars’ channel focuses on filmmaking and breakdown of important scenes; this is not related to the official entry into Oscars. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
On 18 January 2022, ‘Jai Bhim’ was featured on the official YouTube channel of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. When we searched in the official YouTube channel of Oscars for any Indian films that were featured before ‘Jai Bhim’, ‘Two’ by Satyajit Ray was found uploaded on 03 May 2016.
‘Two’ is a 1964 short film made as part of a trilogy under the banner Esso World Theatre. The other two films featured Pandit Ravi Shankar and a ballet troupe from Mumbai. When Satyajit Ray was requested to direct an English film, as an admirer of silent cinema, he instead made a film without words. ‘Two’ was featured on the official YouTube channel of Oscars, as it was part of a restoration project by the Academy. ‘“Two,” also known as “Parable of Two,” is part of the Academy’s Satyajit Ray Collection which includes 18 feature films directed by Ray and preserved by the Archive.’ Satyajit Ray is a renowned Indian filmmaker who was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 1992.
Jai Bhim is the first Tamil movie to have been featured in the official YouTube channel of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, under its ‘Scene at the Academy’ category. ‘Scene at the Academy’, according to Oscars’ official website, is a segment that focuses on filmmaking and the breakdown of important scenes in a movie. The 12-Minute-47-second-long video clip has the opening sequence of ‘Jai Bhim’ with the Director TJ Gnanavel explaining certain sequences at some points.
Featuring in the ‘Scene at the Academy’ is not the same as being nominated to the Oscars. India’s official entry to Oscars 2022 in the international feature film category was a Tamil drama ‘Koozhangal’, but did not find a place in the films shortlisted by the Academy later. ‘Jai Bhim’ had officially entered the Golden Globes 2022 as a nomination under the ‘Best Non-English Language Film’ category.
To sum it up, ‘Jai Bhim’ is not the first Indian movie to have been featured on Oscars’ YouTube channel.