By Neeraj Nanda
MELBOURNE, 20 August 2021: The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2021 (IFFM-2021) online awards today saw Soorarai Pottru (Tamil) getting the best movie award, Best Actor award went to Suriya Shivakumar, Best Indi Film award went to Fire In The Mountains, Best FDirector Award went to Anurag Basu for Lodo, the winner of the Equality In Cinema (Feature) went to God On The Balcony and the Equality in Cinema (Feature) award went to The Great Indian Kitchen, Winner of the Equality In Cinema (Short) went to Sheer Qorma.
The winner of the Best Performance Female (Feature) went to Vidya Balan for Sherni, Destiny in Cinema award went to Pankaj Tripathi, the award for the Best Web Series went to Mirzapur S2, winner for the Best Performance Female (Series) went to Samantha Akkineni for THe Family mMan S2, the winner for the Best Performance Male (Series) went to Manoj Vajpayee for The Family Man S2, Best Documentary award went to Shut Up Sona among other awards.
The 12 edition of the IFFM is on till 30 August 2021 online and so were the awards were given away through Zoom online for the first time in a glittering event attended by more than 230 participants including award winners.
The Festival honored the centenary of India’s iconic Filmmaker and director Satyajit Ray by showing his 10 movies kicking off with Mahanagar (1963).
Awards were also announced for the Short Film Festival by judges Director Onir and actress Richa Chadha.
Most of the awardees joined the online awards event and talked about their movies. There was also an online media conference at the end of the event.
The festival movies to be shown in cinema halls across Melbourne could not happen because of the COVID-19 lockdown and are likely to be shown when the lockdown is lifted. New dates will be announced accordingly.
The Governor of Victoria and Ministers Jason Wood, Luke Donnellan, and IFFM Director Mitu Bhowmick participated in the event.
