“Cake” Receives Praise from Oscars Jury Members in Los Angeles

Earlier in mid-September, it was reported that Pakistan’s Academy Award selection committee featuring prominent names such as Kamila Shamsie, Sahira Kazmi and Sharmin Obaid-Chinoy had selected Cake for Oscar consideration in the Best Foreign Picture category. While that had us elated – the film about a bitter-sweet relationship between two sisters, with its multi layered emotional narrative, was a sheer joy to watch, we have even better news to report. The latest is that over the course of previous week Cake was screened for jury members for the Oscar awards, where it won much praise.

Exclusively speaking to PakistaniCinema.net, Adnan Malik, who played one of the key character in the film stated “Currently me, Asim Abbasi the director and Amina Sheikh are in Los Angeles for the screenings of the film Cake.” Explaining the voting process and how the jury members views each film over a number of screenings, the Sadqay Tumhare actor said by and large the chatter around the movie was positive “At this stage we have had a number of screenings for Academy members; at the last screening we had a decent turnout. Lots of (jury) members spoke to us and were very moved by the film, (they) saw it as a new perspective on Pakistan.”

Elaborating further, Adnan said “The thing that we heard the most was that it affected them emotionally and it didn’t feel necessarily like a story from another culture; there was a universality to the theme of aging parents and the passing of time. It was a wonderful warm little reception.”

Bullish about the film’s prospects for making it to the shortlist for the Best Foreign Picture category, which is the first step towards making it to the final selection, Adnan said “There’s good talk, good hype about the film. We have our fingers crossed.”

We are elated that Cake has found cross cultural resonance and put forth a progressive picture of not just the country but Pakistani cinema as well. Here’s wishing the enterprising team all the best and we sincerely hope it makes it to the shortlist and ultimately the final selection, which will be announced on January 22 in 2019.