The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) on Friday announced the winners for its 12th edition, which was held virtually. The top awards were bagged by Suriya, Vidya Balan, Manoj Bajpayee, Samantha Akkineni, among others.
Suriya bagged the Best Actor (Male) award in the feature film category for Soorari Pottru while Vidya Balan won the Best Actor (Female) in the same category for Sherni. In the web series category, Manoj Bajpayee and Samantha Akkineni won the Best Actor awards for their web series The Family Man 2.
Mirzapur 2 bagged the Best Series award and Soorarai Pottru won the Best Feature Film award.
Talking about his win, Suriya said, “This film is very special. This is the first award I’m getting for this film. This is one of the first films that came to me during the pandemic. Thanks to all the fans who have given us so much love. In my career, I felt bored with what I was doing after having worked for 20 years. So thanks to my director Sudha – this film was her 10 years dream – she worked 4 years on writing or his film. The character of Maara will not be anything without her. I couldn’t ask for more.”
Recommended
Balan, who could not be present at the virtual event, said in a video message that she is thankful to her director and producers for giving her Sherni. While Balan won the award, the jury gave an honorable mention to actor Nimisha Sajayan for The Great Indian Kitchen.
Bajpayee thanked the writers of The Family Man 2 and said, “It’s highly embarrassing for me to take away the award to myself without mentioning everyone involved. Amazon, Raj, and DK, but it’s the writers for the series that make a lot of difference. It’s that team of writers, so thank you to them for giving me the space to become this character.”
Akkineni too thanked the creator of the show and said, “Thanks to Raj and DK to see past the cute girl image I have and to give me this role which is so different from what I have done so far. To give me this character that has so many layers and such diverse parts to it.”
The Best Director award was given to filmmaker Anurag Basu for his Netflix project Ludo. Other awards given were as follows:
Equality in Cinema Award (Feature Film) – The Great Indian Kitchen
Best Indie Film – Fire in the Mountains
Diversity in Cinema Award – Pankaj Tripathi
Disruptor Award – Sanal Kumar Sasidharan
Best Documentary Film – Shut Up Sona