Marathi thriller drama Gondhal was named India’s official entry to the Oscars 2027. On Friday, the Film Federation of India (FFI) announced it. The film has been chosen as the first official entry over the highest-grossing Indian film of the year, , and the sleeper hit, Hanuman Ansh.
Written and directed by Santosh Davakhar, Gondhal is set in rural Maharashtra. The film focuses on a night during a traditional ritual centred around a newlywed couple.
Gondhal was chosen as India’s submission in the Best International Feature category for the 99th Academy Awards. It was picked from a list of 33 films, shared P Sheshadri, chairperson of the committee.
Out of 33 submitted films, 14 were in Hindi, four in Marathi, Telugu, and Gujarati each, three in Tamil and one in Malayalam and Nagamese. One of them was also a silent film.
“This year we’ve had four Marathi films, 14 Hindi films, and others films, all the films were good. It’s a happy moment for Indian cinema, for Marathi cinema. This time the official entry is ‘Gondhal’,” Sheshadri told reporters as per PTI.
“We’ve watched 33 films in last ten days of different languages. There were many other good films for which we were debating about. ‘Angh’ and ‘Ikkis’ were in top three list apart from ‘Gondhal’,” he added.
The list of 33 films which were submitted to FFI included Yami Gautam’s Haq, Aditya Dhar’s Dhurandhar and Dhurandhar: The Revenge, , Sunny Deol’s, Imtiaz Ali’s, Ram Charan’s Peddi and Farhan Akhtar’s 120 Bahadur.
The jury panel consisted of P Sheshadri, Vijay Patkar, Hutu Kanodia, Shanti Kumar, Sandeep Parashar, Sanjay Patil, Sabu Joseph, Anil Thomas, Vivek Vaswani, Bijon Dasgupta, Haasan, Vasan, and Tannishtha Chatterjee.
Gondhal premiered at the 56th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in the Indian Panorama segment in Goa in 2025. Director Davakhar won the Silver Peacock for Best Director at the event.
Set against the midnight carnival of the ritualistic Gondhal dance in rural Maharashtra. It follows the story of Suman, a newlywed woman who is trapped in a troubled marriage. As she feels trapped and suffocated, she plots a murder and an escape plan with her lover. She uses the acred tradition of the Gondhal ritual into a ploy of desire and revenge which forms the crux of the film.
Gondhal stars Ishita Deshmukh in the lead alongside Yogesh Sohoni, Kishor Kadam, Suresh Vishwakarma, Nishad Bhoir, Anuj Prabhu, Vitthal Kale in key roles.
The music of the film is helmed by Ilaiyaraaja.
The film was release on November 14, 2025.
