“A Billion Color Story” wins top prize at London Indian Film FestJuly 1, 2017 - 12:39 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - “A Billion Color Story” won the top prize at the eighth Bagri Foundation London Indian Film Festival in London and Birmingham, the U.K. and Europe’s largest platform of independent cinema from the Indian subcontinent, Variety said. The film, which is a powerful plea for Hindu-Muslim unity and religious harmony, received the audience award for best film at LIFF. “We’re thrilled and truly, absolutely honored, to receive this award,” said the film’s director Padmakumar Narasimhamurthy and producer Satish Kaushik. ” It’s incredibly special for us that ‘A Billion Colour Story’ resonates with audiences across countries and continents. It continues to vindicate our faith that people and their hearts are the same across cultures and horizons. We dedicate this award to the victims of the recent lynchings, in India.” Three Sunmark Icon Awards for South Asian directors who have made a global contribution to cinema were presented to directors Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Ashutosh Gowariker; plus documentary filmmaker and British Asian LGBTQ+ activist Pratibha Parmar. The Sunmark achievement award went to actress Anjali Patil for her first feature film, “Delhi in a Day,” which was showcased at the festival in 2011. LIFF’s annual Satyajit Ray Short Film Award went to “Papa,” directed by Siddharth Chauhan. The festival, which began June 22, closes July 2 at the BFI Southbank and Birmingham at Cineworld Broad Street with a thriller set in Kerala, “Sexy Durga.” “It is wonderful that the festival continues to lead the debate and not simply reflect the changing shape of Indian cinema, from this year’s Indian virtual reality showcases to bringing carefully curated important new talent to the world stage like Anjali Patil to showcasing emerging young directors like Sanal Kumar Sasidharan, director of closing night film, ‘Sexy Durga,’” said festival executive and programming director Cary Rajinder Sawhney. Top stories The creative crew of the Public TV had chosen 13-year-old Malena as a participant of this year's contest. She called on others to also suspend their accounts over the companies’ failure to tackle hate speech. Penderecki was known for his film scores, including for William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist”, Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”. The festival made the news public on March 19, saying that “several options are considered in order to preserve its running” Partner news | U.S. warns Georgia not to side with Moscow against the west Georgia has been warned by the U.S. not to become an adversary of the west by falling back in line with Moscow. Power of One Dram sums up two-year program with Teach for Armenia Idram Junior also joined the companies during the visit, bringing with it a fascinating intellectual game for children Moscow slams EU mission in Armenia for “provocative activity” The EU mission is doing more and more against Armenia’s neighbors Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran, Mikhail Galuzin said. Yerevan Mayor to travel to Paris on May 15-19 The official delegation headed by Yerevan Mayor Tigran Avinyan will travel to Paris from May 15 to 19. |