Grammy Winner Ricky Kej Calls Laapataa Ladies 'Wrong Choice' By India For Oscars 2025: 'We Live In Mainstream Bollywood Bubble'

Laapataa Ladies, which was India's official entry in the Best International Feature category at the Oscars 2025, failed to make it to the final shortlist for The Academy Awards and was ousted from the race on Wednesday. As cine-lovers expressed their disappointment, three-time Grammy Award winner Ricky Kej stated that it was wrong for India to send the film to the Oscars in the first place.

Kej took to his X handle and wrote, "So, the @TheAcademy Oscars shortlist is out. #LaapataaLadies is a very well made, entertaining movie (I enjoyed it), but was absolutely the wrong choice to represent India for the best #InternationalFeatureFilm category. As expected, it lost (sic)."

Explaining his stance, he stated, "When are we going to realize.. year after year.. we are choosing the wrong films. There are so many excellent movies made, and we should be winning the #InternationalFeatureFilm category every year! Unfortunately we live in a "Mainstream Bollywood" bubble, where we cannot look beyond films that we ourselves find entertaining. Instead we should just look for good films made by film-makers who are uncompromising in their art.. low budget or big budget.. star or no star.. just great artistic cinema (sic)."

Kej also shared the two official posters of Laapataa Ladies and wrote, "I am sure most academy voting members dismissed the film just by looking at these (sic)."

Mewnwhile, a total of 15 films have been selected for the Oscar shortlist in Best International Feature category out of 85 total films submitted by countries all around the world.

Laapataa Ladies, which was submitted by India at the Oscars 2025 as 'Lost Ladies', starred Nitanshi Goel, Pratibha Ranta, Sparsh Shrivastav and Ravi Kishan in key roles. It was directed by Kiran Rao and produced by Aamir Khan Productions.