New Delhi, Feb 10: It was indeed a joyful and emotional moment for filmmakers Rintu Thomas and Sushmit Ghosh, whose documentary "Writing With Fire" has been nominated for an Oscar. They jumped around, hugged each other in excitement when the announcement was made last evening.

  

 

In a video tweeted by Rintu Thomas, the filmmakers can be seen watching the Oscars nominees being announced, plainly waiting with bated breath. It has made it to the final-five list to compete for the 94th Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category. "Oh My God!!!! Writing With Fire just got nominated for the @TheAcademy Award. Oh My God!!!!!!!! #OscarNoms #WritingWithFire," Rintu Thomas wrote in her tweet.

 

 

"Writing with Fire" is perhaps the first all-India independent production to make it to the final nomination in this category. In December, it had made it to the Oscars shortlist — among 15 films from a pool of 138.

 

 

After the venue was shifted last year in view of Covid-19, the Academy Award ceremony will return to its long-time home at Los Angeles’ Dolby Theatre on March 27.

 

The other four finalists in the category are Chinese-American Jessica Kingdon’s film ‘Ascension’ on the Chinese Dream; Traci A Curry and Stanley Nelson’s ‘Attica’ about the 1971 uprising at Attica prison in New York State; Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s Danish animated Afghan refugee story ‘Flee’; and Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson’s ‘Summer of the Soul (…Or, When the Revolution Could Not be Televised)’ on the 1969 Harlem cultural festival.

 

The documentary film, whose journey began six years ago, and which spotlights the Dalit women-run newspaper in Bundelkhand, ‘Khabar Lahariya’, mapping its print-to-digital transition, has been making headlines since it won the Special Jury (Impact for Change) and Audience awards at the Sundance Film Festival in January last year. It has bagged 28 international awards since.