Lagaan will win Oscar, says Sunil Dutt

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">new delhi: "<span style="" font-style:="" italic="">lagaan </span>will emerge a victor at the oscars. this is my gut feeling," said veteran actor and parliamentarian sunil dutt, the only remaining member of the lead cast of mehboob khan''s <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">mother india</span>, the first indian film to have been nominated for the prestigious award."the young boys (aamir khan and ashutosh gowarikar) are doing their best to secure due attention for the film from the jury. all this hard work will definitely pay," dutt said on sunday, noting he had a "very strong intuition" that the aamir xi would outsmart the rest of the world for the best foreign film oscar. emphasising the importance of "lobbying" for a film to do well in the oscars arena, dutt said in a telephonic interview from mumbai, "it is important to form an impression on the jury members. and the only way you can do it is to ensure that they see the film." calling it representative of the american way of life, dutt, one of the most respected figures in the film industry, said, "it is all about good marketing skills, which we did not know the importance of". harking back to 1957, the year mehboob khan''s magnum opus was nominated for the oscar, dutt said, "we were confident of winning the award." "the film had done well globally. in mexico, it had a run of six months. so we had all reason to believe it could create a strong enough impression in neighbouring us to get the academy award, more so as it had gained the admiration of the likes of marlon brando," he said. the awards that his wife and co-star in the film, nargis dutt, won at the international film festivals in greece and peru further made them even more sure of bagging the oscar. he also recounted how the then egyptian president, col nasser, on his visit to india, made a special request to pandit nehru to facilitate a meeting with mehboob khan so that he could make his admiration of the film known to the film-maker in person. so, very little was done by way of "generating publicity" for the classic among the jury at the academy, he said. "we were not aware of the importance of lobbying. khan sahab (mehboob khan) went to the us only for the awards function," he recalled, adding it could have been a reason why the film lost out to the italian film <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">111 mins</span> directed by federico fellini. on the contrary, the italian community in the us was instrumental in creating the right buzz for <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">111 mins</span>, he said. mehboob khan was utterly disappointed at not getting the award, said dutt. "he had seen the other films in the fray and believed <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">mother india </span>was far superior to them." however, he said, only the people in the film industry were aware of the importance of the academy awards. "compared to the media coverage that <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">lagaan </span>is getting, and all the speculations doing the rounds, <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">mother india </span>got very little press for having been nominated for the oscar. there was no euphoria over the announcement of the nomination for <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">mother india</span>," recalled dutt. "now, the whole nation is looking expectantly towards los angeles," said dutt, adding, "<span style="" font-style:="" italic="">lagaan </span>will definitely do the nation proud," he added. </div> </div>