Nita and Visa win awards at Indus Valley International Film Festival
Veteran actress Nita Fernando won yet another international recognition for her role as Babanona, a washerwoman who fight to seek justice for her abducted son, at the Indus Valley International Film Festival which was concluded in New Delhi recently.
Suparna’s cinematographer Dhanushak Gunatillake
Nita won the Jury’s Special Mention for Best Actress while filmmaker Visakesa Chandrasekaram won the Best Humane Narrative for his ‘Paangshu’ or ‘The Earth’. In May for the same role Nita won the Best Actress award at the 2019 Nice International Film Festival in France. At the festival film’s art director Kumara Karawdeniya also won the Best Costume Designer award. Among other international accolades ‘Paangshu’ won the Royal Reel Award in 2019 at the Canada International Film Festival and it was hailed at the Dhaka International Film Festival and the Barcelona Imagine India International Film Festival.
In addition to ‘Paangshu’ the Best Cinematography award was won by Dhanushka Gunathilake for Sujeewa Yaddehige’s film ‘Suparna’.
Among the other main awards at the Indo Valley Festival; Himanshu Malik (Chitrakut) won the Best Debut Director, the Best Eternal Tale won by ‘The River of Love’, the Best Period Drama was ‘Rangoon’, ‘PadMan’ ajudged the Best Film on Social Theme, the Best Story- Akash Khurana’s ‘The River of Love’, the Best Director – Rajat Kapoor for Kadakh and the Best Film is ‘Chaman Bahar’
Organised by SAFACH (South Asia Forum for Art and Creative Heritage),“South Asia’s first Borderless Digital Film Festival” hosted nine days of outstanding films, interaction with celebrities, workshops on filmmaking, master classes, scriptwriting, theatre acting, and direction.
“Jury comprising of Supriti – a Diversity and Inclusion consultant, Vineet Chopra – a Theatre Director and Harsh Narayan – a Filmmaker, had a tough time coming to the conclusion. Screening brought forward the rich diversity and legacy of South Asian films,” the festival organisers stated. The festival opened with R Balki film ‘Padman’ and closed with Vishal Bhardwaj film ‘Rangoon’. Ace Actor Himanshu Malik was the ‘Master of Ceremony’, who also announced the final Awards.
Indus Valley International Film Festival showcased a line-up of films from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India. There were also films in International Panorama segment, comprising films from Italy, Spain etc. Thousands of cine lovers from across the world got an opportunity to see a range of movies, short films, documentaries and also got a glimpse of celebrities and renowned actors and directors.
Announcing the Festival Harsh Narayan, Founder and Creative Director – Indus Valley International Film Festival said “During these nine days, all the filmmakers from across South Asian countries, had a consensus that a digital platform for South Asian Creative Industry should be created, where they can meet, network, plan co-productions, and collaborate on various aspects of filmmaking. Another important suggestion came that we create a South Asian Cinema fund, to select and support development of quality screen content in South Asia. These are the most important take-away of this Second edition of Indus Valley International Film Festival. All of us are super excited to take this platform Indus Valley to the next level altogether, as a unified source for South Asian Creative Industry. We also seek to take it to the next level by becoming South and South-East Asia’s first Borderless Digital Creative Network.”
Organised by South Asia Forum for Art and Creative Heritage (SAFACH), a non-governmental organisation which aspires to become a strong medium to facilitate dialogues between the creative industries, encourage creative and artistic collaborations create a networking platform for the artistes, musicians, film fraternity, facilitate creative collaborations and establish a forum to share art, culture, literature, etc.
‘Paangshu’ which has being screeing in selected theatres including Regal Colombo and some of the Lite cinemas like Amity Lite, would resume screenings once theatres which were closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic are opened.
Nita Fernando in ‘Paangshu’
Paangshu Director Visakesa