‘Chhello Show’ director on the trolling faced after film was announced India's official entry for Oscars

The country is celebrating ‘Chhello Show’s success after it made it to the shortlist at the Oscars in the Best International Feature category. In a recent interview, director Pan Nalin opened up about the trolling the team had to face and all the hatred they received when their film was announced as India’s official entry for Oscars.

He spoke about the moment when he learnt about his film’s selection and mentioned that the proud moment soon turned ‘sad’ as they faced ‘baseless allegations, and trolling.’

He told Mid-Day that the worst was the cyber attack prior to their film’s release. Nalin said that his ‘team was threatened with warnings, ‘Oscars mein se film nikaal, nahi toh achcha nahin hoga’ (Get out of the running or you will face consequences). Instead of celebrating and campaigning in the US, we were busy fighting this [vitriol] for three to four weeks’.

When SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus ‘RRR’ was snubbed by the Film Federation of India to represent India at the Oscars, social media debate started suggesting that Ram Charan and Jr NTR starrer had a brighter chance of making it to the shortlist, in comparison to the Gujarati film.

‘Chhello Show’ had a token theatrical release followed by an OTT release after the Oscar announcement.

Pan Nalin said when the Indian audience, film critics and industry folks finally watched the movie, they could not stop themselves from falling in love with it and in the end, the power of cinema won.

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