Scenes from Water (top) and Rang De Basanti

Calcutta, Jan. 17: Canada is the new India. With Rang De Basanti not making it to the nine-film Oscar shortlist for the best foreign film category, Deepa Mehta’s Water, which has made it as a Canadian entry, is now India’s best shot at the 79th Annual Academy Awards.

In a new rule for the Oscars exclusive to the category, the several hundred members of the foreign-language film committee selected the nine nominees from the 61 submissions as Phase I of the process. In what will be Phase II, a committee of 30, comprising 10 randomly selected members of the larger group and two 10-member contingents from New York and Los Angeles, will choose the final five nominees, to be declared on January 23.

While India’s official Oscar entry, the Rakeysh Mehra-directed Aamir Khan-starrer Rang De Basanti couldn’t overcome Phase I, Deepa Mehta’s Water, which couldn’t be made in India in 2003 because of protests in Varanasi and was shot in Sri Lanka, found pride of place in the Top Nine. The film was entered from Canada after new Oscar rules allowed a country to nominate a film that isn’t in its indigenous language.

But now, Water is as much an Indian film as it is Canadian. The film’s leading star, John Abraham, told The Telegraph minutes after Water was named in the shortlist: “I am happy and proud that an Indian subject has made it.” The Deepa Mehta film, set in 1938 Varanasi, examines the plight of widows at an ashram and also stars Lisa Ray and Seema Biswas.

A.R. Rahman, whose song from the film Chhan chhan is up for an Oscar too, had earlier told The Telegraph: “I am more confident about Water than Rang De Basanti because it had done very well at the North American and Canadian box-office.”

The announcement was a big blow to the Rang De team, which won a Bafta (the British Oscars) nomination less than a week ago. UTV’s Ronnie Screwvala said: “It was an honour for Rang De to compete with some great international films that were up for the Oscars this year. We now look forward to the Bafta Awards, where Rang De is the only Asian film to be nominated.”

Coming in the way of both Water and Rang De at the Oscars and Baftas, respectively, are the same films mostly. The other eight films in the Academy shortlist are Days of Glory (Algeria), After the Wedding (Denmark), Avenue Montaigne (France), The Lives of Others (Germany), Pan’s Labyrinth (Mexico), Black Book (The Netherlands), Volver (Spain) and Vitus (Switzerland). Of these, Pedro Almodovar’s Volver, Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book, Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth are also up for the “Film Not In The English Language” Bafta Award.