Sonam Kapoor & Nawazuddin win top awards at IFFM
13th August 2016, Melbourne (Puneet Dhingra)
Watch Video: Highlights of Indian FIlm Festival of Melbourne Award Night
The Melbourne Recital Center danced to the beats of Bollywood on August 12th as the winners of the Westpac Indian Film Festival of Melbourne and the Western Union Short Film Festival were declared. Hindi Cinema’s great off-beat actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui won the best Actor Award for his work in the movie “Raman Raghav 2.0”, while the Bollywood fashionista Sonam Kapoor bagged best actress award for her performance in the hit Indian movie of 2016 “Neerja”. Both these movies were also screened at the festival. The star attraction of this Night was Bollywood hallmark Rishi Kapoor who was awarded the Westpac Excellence in Cinema Award for 2016.
Besides this ‘Parched’ won the award for Best Indie Film & Director of this women centric film Leena Yadav won Westpac Best Director Award. Radhika Apte’s film Parched, which is a story about women, set in the heart of parched rural landscape of Gujarat India. More interesting thing is that, Indian Film Festival of Melbourne opened with the screening of this movie Parched and also received a second showing on Friday the 19th August for those who missed the opening night screening.
Director Leena Yadav & Actress Radhika Apte during Film “Parched” Screening
Director Shakun Batra’s “Kapoor & Sons” won the honors for the Best Movie. The lead actor of this film Fawad Khan from Pakistan was also present in the award ceremony to receive this prestigious award. The Kapoor & Sons actor added another title to his career as he got the diversity award for his contribution to Indian and Pakistani Cinema.
Actor Fawad Khan
The night also witnessed the declaration of the Western Union Short Film Festival Best Film Award. The prize this year was taken out by Josh Walker for his film Out on a Lim, which is based on WAAPA student Rachel Lim, who has turned into a splendid piano player and artist in spite of being visually impaired.
The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne Award Night also graced by Empowerment Concert, which saw great female vocalist musicians from India Sara Haider, Shalmali Kholgade and Suzanne D’Mello Misquitta’s powerful musical performances. Bollywood Celebrities Malaika Arora Khan, Anurag Kashyap, Neetu Kapoor, Rituparna Sengupta and Richa Chadda were also in attendance.
The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2016 commenced from August 11 and continued till August 21. This was the fifth year of the shining award show and this time it had ‘Women Empowerment’ as the central theme.
Puneet creations 