After wooing the audiences worldwide, Nikhil Advani’s animated adventure Delhi Safari has made its grand entry to world’s most prestigious movie recognition award ceremony. The film has been shortlisted for the 85th Academy Awards in the animation category. Directed by Nikhil Advani, Delhi Safari is a rarity in Hindi cinema, an animated family film with real world themes about urban sprawl and the effects of humanity on the global ecosystem. The idea of this film came to Advani on one of many long nature walks that he enjoys taking with his six year old daughter.

Producer-director Nikhil Advani must have thought he had pulled off a coup of sorts when he got the rights of the old Bappi Lahiri Kishore Kumar-S Janaki duet <em>Tu mera tota main teri maina</em> from the 1989 film <em>Paap Ki Duniya</em>, for his animation film <em>Delhi Safari</em>. The song fitted into Advani’s film like a hand in glove since it was filmed on a parrot in the film about ecological imbalance and animal welfare. The parrot incidentally speaks in the voice of Akshaye Khanna and in fact Advani intended to record the song <em>Tu mera tota</em> in Khanna’s voice.

Nikhil Advani’s Delhi Safari, the internationally acclaimed 3D stereoscopic animation feature film produced by Krayon Pictures, is all set for a nationwide release on 19 October (2012). The film is the story of five animals who journey to Delhi to protest before the parliament when their homeland (forest) is encroached upon by builders. Govinda, Akshaye Khanna, Boman Irani, Urmila Matondkar and Suniel Shetty have lent their voice for the film.