Hope floats for Bollywood

There’s more than just gold statuettes at stake this morning as Slumdog Millionaire, with 11 nominations, aims to lift the Oscars. Here’s what its triumph in various categories could mean for India and the world of cinema:

More of Bollywood in Hollywood
If Slumdog wins, it could spawn a dozen westernised Bollywood films that will boost the globalisation of Hollywood, The Sunday Times (London) reported on Sunday. Already, many of Hollywood’s top directors, such as Sir Ridley Scott, the New Zealander Peter Jackson or the Mexican Guillermo del Toro are immigrants.

Actors will come to India for roles
Steven Spielberg is relaunching his Dream-Works studio with the help of Mumbai rupees. Dozens of actors will follow Billy Connolly, Sylvester Stallone and Snoop Dogg to India in search of the next great role.

It will help me do bigger things: Rahman
AR Rahman, who has three nominations for Slumdog in Best Original Score and Best Original Song category for Jai Ho and O...Saya, says an Oscar win would lead to “bigger things” for him. “It would help me do bigger things,” Rahman told The New York Times over phone from Los Angeles where he was preparing for his performance at the Oscars. Rahman said he would like to work with Western directors such as Baz Luhrmann and Ridley Scott. “I’m a big fan of Ridley,” he said.

More Pinkys could  smile
Megan Mylan’s Smile Pinky, the story of a girl with a cleft lip, is one of four films nominated for best short documentary. It depicts the saga of Pinky, 6, who becomes an outcast because of her deformity. In the 39-minute film, the girl from Dabai village in UP undergoes corrective surgery and gets a normal life. Surgeon Subodh Kumar Singh, who treated Pinky free, said the nomination would help to create awareness about children in rural areas. A win could take that awareness to new levels.

Village kids can do it too
Resul Pookutty, nominated for sound mixing for Slumdog, grew up in the village of Vilakkupara, 80 km north of Thiruvananthapuram, when it had hardly any facilities and many of its streets didn’t have lights. Today, every home in the village has a phone, cable TV and some even have computers, but his victory today could bring a sense of hope to youngsters from India’s countless villages who want to make it big. “The people in my village are going nuts,” Pookutty said recently.

Sliming doesn’t always work
As Slumdog became an Oscar favourite, the “murky Hollywood art of sliming swung into action,” The Sunday Times reported. Local Hollywood papers claimed that the film was ‘poverty porn’, that it insulted Mumbai’s slumdwellers, and that its actors had been exploited. Then came allegations that Freida Pinto had dumped her fiancé. Reports pointed out how the slime game worked against Brokeback Mountain and A Beautiful Mind. The more awards Slumdog wins, the more it will be established that quality wins finally.