India did not formally nominate the film ‘Dhirendra’ for the 99th Academy Awards despite its phenomenal box office success.

Vivek Vaswani, a member of the jury of the Film Federation of India, revealed on social media that Dhirind was liked by some people, but it does not meet the Oscar criteria.

Marathi film Gondhal has been chosen to represent India at the 2027 Oscars instead of Dharendra.

Vivek Vaswani has stated that the film starring Ranveer Singh did not represent Indian culture in the way that the jury was looking for when selecting the film for the Academy Awards.

He revealed that out of the 14-member jury that selected India’s entry for the Oscars, only 4 members voted in favor of Dharendra, while Gondhal was selected from a total of 33 films.

These included 14 Hindi, 4 Marathi, 4 Telugu, 3 Gujarati, 3 Tamil, 1 Malayalam, 1 Nepali and 1 Nagaland films.

It should be noted that Gondhal, written and directed by Santosh Dwakar, is a thriller film, set against the backdrop of a traditional Maharashtra midnight ritual and a form of folk performance, from which the film derives its name.