India, Sept. 26 -- Last week, debutant director Aryan Khan's show The Ba***ds of Bollywood (BoB) landed on Netflix, and the Film Federation of India (FFI) announced Homebound (2025), directed by Neeraj Ghaywan, would be India's submission for the Best International Feature Film at the Oscars.

To be India's pick for the Oscars means Ghaywan's film is considered good enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the best from around the globe, on an international stage. Not that streaming platforms are the equivalent of the Oscars, but the arrival of companies such as Disney+, Netflix and Amazon's Prime Video was supposed to herald a new era when Indian entertainment would soar unshackled and vie with foreign counterparts.

A decade later, the...