India enters Lagaan for Oscars

The Film Federation of India FFI has chosen an unusual film about a game of cricket as India's entry in the foreign film category for next year's Oscar awards in Hollywood.

The film - Lagaan - is set in the nineteenth century and tells the story of a group of peasants who challenge their British colonial oppressors to a game of cricket in order to escape a punitive tax.

Lagaan, which includes British actors alongside the Indian star, Aamir Khan, won an award at this year's Locarno film festival in Switzerland.

India has been nominating films for the Oscars for two decades but has never won Hollywood's highest honour.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service