By: PTINew Delhi | November 17, 2025 02:41 PM IST 3 min readAranya Sahay's feature Humans in the Loop has officially qualified to be a contender for the 98th Academy Awards.Aranya Sahay’s feature Humans in the Loop has been awarded the Film Independent Sloan Distribution Grant, as the film officially qualified for the Academy Awards consideration.The Sloan Distribution Grant, given by Film Independent and the Alfred P Sloan Foundation, supports narrative features that engage meaningfully with science or technology themes or characters, helping to reach wider audiences through strategic release support.Following its US theatrical release and meeting other eligibility criteria, the film has officially qualified to be a contender for the 98th Academy Awards, where it will compete to be in the Best Original Screenplay category., according to a press release.Also read | Awkward conversations and constant interruptions, Kajol and Twinkle Khanna’s show has nothing much to sayThe film tells the story of an indigenous woman working at a rural data-annotation centre in India. “Humans in the Loop” examines the ethics and inequities of machine learning while foregrounding empathy, lived experience, and cultural knowledge.“We are at a cusp with artificial intelligence, and humanity needs to take responsibility for the kind of AI and the kind of future we are building. I’m deeply grateful to Film Independent and the Sloan Foundation for allowing us to take this conversation across the US. Humans in the Loop is about the human heartbeat inside technology, and this grant recognises the people whose labour and stories often remain unseen.” said writer and director Sahay in a statement. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Museum of Imagined Futures (@museumofimaginedfutures)“Through ‘Humans in the Loop’ and our work at the Museum of Imagined Futures, we’ve been creating space for technologists and creatives to rethink how stories about technology are told… The Sloan Foundation’s support and now the film’s entry into the Oscar race are a validation of Aranya’s screenplay that creatives can help shape the future of tech,” said producer Mathivanan Rajendran.Over the past two decades, the Sloan Film program has backed more than 850 screenplays, short films and feature films, including The “Imitation Game”, “Hidden Figures”, “The Man Who Knew Infinity”, and “Oppenheimer”. The grant makes Aranya Sahay and Mathivanan Rajendran Film Independent Fellows.“We are proud to help bring awareness in the US about ‘Humans in the Loop’ through the Sloan Distribution Grant,” said Dea Vazquez, Associate Director of Fiction Programs at Film Independent.Story continues below this ad“The film’s rigorous and deeply human approach to exploring AI and the role of technology in our lives perfectly reflects the mission of the grant,” she added.Click here to follow Screen Digital on YouTube and stay updated with the latest from the world of cinema.Tags:featureoscar