India's 2003 Oscar nominee ''Lagaan'' could have lost out in the race for the best foreign film Oscar due to its inordinate length, a US filmmaker says.

'' 'Laagan' may have lost the most prestigious award because of its length,'' Acclaimed American writer-director Lawrence David Foldes said here last evening.

''Americans are not used to watching long films. A film of around two hours becomes too much for them. Amir Khan-starrer ''Laagan'' was over three-and-half-hours and this may have probably gone against it,''Foldes opined while talking to reporters after his ''Finding Home'' was premiered in the ongoing international cinema competition of the third Pune International Film Festival (PIFF).

The independent director whose film ''Finding Home'', starring several Academy Award nominees, has been screened at several internatinal film festivals like Monaco, Rome and Montreal, rued that standard of Hollywood films was ''declining'' since 1980s due to crass commercialisation of movie making.

''Films have become a big business in the United States and involve a lot of money. They are produced and marketed like a product and this has adversely affecting the art of film-making,''Foldes said.

''Today's Hollywood films are technologically superior, but they are nowhere near the classics which were made during 1950s or 1960s, which was the golden era of the US film industry,'' pointed out out Mr Foldes, who produced his first film ''Malibu High'' when he was just 18.

''The independent directors in the US are the last bastion of hope of arresting this creative decline in the world's biggest film industry,'' said Foldes, who has been on several committees of Academy of Motion Pictures, the presenters of Oscar Awards.

Speaking about problems of getting finance for films, the US director said,''it is a universal phenomenon and existed in America also.'' Foldes' ''Finding Home'', is a 124-minute movie which is the story of a young woman's struggle to reclaim her life and love as she unravels the mysteries of her family's turbulent past.