The 46th International Film Festival of India came to a glittering close on Monday with Argentinian film by Ciro Guerra Embrace of the Serpent winning the coveted Golden Peacock award, the top prize of the festival.
The best director award at India’s biggest international film festival, the Silver Peacock, was won by British filmmaker Peter Greenaway for his film Eisenstein in Guanajuato, while Julia Vargas’ film Sealed Cargo, won the Special Jury award at the IFFI’s closing ceremony, in which Oscar award winning music director AR Rahman was chief guest.
The best actor male award was won by French actor Vincent lindon for his performance in the film Measure of a Man, even as five Turkish actresses Gunes Sensoy, Doga Dugusulo, Tukba ungurugulu, Eltitz Kan, liada Akdogan jointly won the best actor female award for their performance in the film Mustang.
Goran Radovanovic’s Serbian film Enclave won the special mention award from the IFFI jury headed by renowned director Shekhar Kapoor also.
Indian filmmaker Kaushik Ganguly won the newly instituted Unesco Fellini medal for his film Cinemawala.
The lifetime achievement award was presented to Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhailkov at the closing ceremony after which Argentinian film The Clan was screened.
Speaking at the occasion, Minister of State (Independent Charge) Union Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore extolled the virtues of cinema, saying it was one of the biggest social unifier, cutting across the barriers of caste, religion, class, etc.
“Indian cinema is even more unique. When we go a theatre, it can be an escape from the world, it can be an inspiration for all of us too. The words stay with us. Most of the time we become part of the movie. We silently ally with the underdog in the movie,” Rathore said. “We become part of the film and we carry the message of the film when we go back into our lives,” Rathore said.
Rehman, who was the chief guest, echoed Rathore’s sentiments and took them a notch higher with his personal tribute to cinema.
“Cinema threates have become modern shrines of unity. I hope better things will happen and people will come with great cinematic, humanitarian movies which will unite the world and celebrate culture and the commonality of consciousness,” Rehman said.
A number of 187 films from 89 countries, 26 of which are official Academy award entries, and 47 films from the Indian Panorama section, were screened at the festival this year.
The 11-day event, which opened on November 20 with Matt Brown’s film The Man Who Knew Infinity based on the life of Indian mathematics wizard Srinivasa Ramanujan, was attended by nearly 8,000 delegates from 38 countries.