INDIA has selected “Gully Boy” as the country’s official entry for the best international feature film category at the 2020 Oscars.

Directed by Zoya Akhtar, the film is inspired by the lives of Mumbai street rappers Divine and Naezy and stars top actor Ranveer Singh as an aspiring rapper living in the slums who dreams of breaking through. Leading actress Alia Bhatt plays his love interest.

The critically acclaimed “Gully Boy” premiered in Berlin and also performed strongly at the box office when it was released in February while throwing the spotlight on India’s growing underground hip-hop scene.

While India has bagged three Academy Award nominations in what was then the foreign-language category over the years — starting with 1957’s “Mother India,” followed by 1989’s “Salaam Bombay” and 2002’s “Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India” — the country has yet to win an Oscar. Last year, India’s entry was Rima Das’ “Village Rockstars.”

However, in their individual capacity, Indian talent has picked up Oscars starting with the country’s first winner, Bhanu Athaiya who won for costume design for Richard Attenborough’s 1982 epic “Gandhi.” The late Satyajit Ray was bestowed an honorary Oscar in 1992 and after a long spell, in 2009, composer A. R. Rahman picked up two trophies for best song and best original score for “Slumdog Millionaire” while Resul Pookutty won best sound mixing for the same film.

Meanwhile, Venezuela has chosen Patricia Ortega’s “Being Impossible” as the country’s bid for an Oscar. The film centers around Ariel, a young seamstress who discovers she was submitted to several surgeries to correct her intersexual body as a baby, a revelation will confront her with the challenge of choosing her true identity.

Canada has selected writer-director Sophie Deraspe’s refugee family drama “Antigone” for the competition. The French-language indie adapts Sophocles’ classical Greek tragedy of the same name to tell the story of a young woman’s search for justice as Deraspe questions the treatment of immigrants in modern-day Montreal.

France’s choice is Ladj Ly’s “Les Miserables,” a modern-day update of the Victor Hugo classic which won the Jury Prize in Cannes this year.

The 92nd Academy Awards are set to take place Feb. 9, 2020. (SD-Agencies)