At the final day of the 12th Mumbai Film Festival, awards were bestowed to several deserving films, but the limelight was on the two receipients of the lifetime achievement award
“Before you came to India, you were Oliver Stone, but now, you're a precious stone,” said veteran actor and director Manoj Kumar, who along with Stone, received the lifetime achievement award at the closing ceremony of the 12th Mumbai Film Festival, reports Mumbai Mirror.
The ceremony started over an hour and a half late, true to Indian Standard Time..
The presence of Bollywood stars Fardeen Khan and Raima Sen raised fears of more goof-ups, like in the inaugural ceremony. However, the two hosts did their job without any noticeable error, saving themselves and the festival more embarrassment.
Earlier in the day though, Samira Makhmalbaf made a public appearance to release a book on her by Pradeep Biswas. Dressed in black, she was all beauty and charm. All the other arts have had its child prodigies. In cinema however, if there ever was one, it has to be Samira Makhmalbaf. And she proved she had the brains to go with it yesterday.
Festival director Srinivasan Narayanan had said a few days back that if he could, he would create 14 awards to give to all the 14 films in the international competition. He came one third of the way as the festival gave awards to five of those 14 films.
R, a gritty tale of a Danish prison won the Silver Gateway Award Jury Grand Prize. Director Michael Noer said he did not expect to win as it had raised quite some debate during its screening on the purpose and style of making the film.
People expected an all woman's jury to give an award to a woman director and they did not disappoint. Only, it was not because Anocha Suwichakornpong was a woman that she won the Silver Gateway award for best director for her film “Mundane History”, but also because it was one of the best films in the competition.
However, the winner all the way was the Turkish film Majority directed by Seren Yüce. It won both the Golden Gateway Award for best film, as well as the best actor for Bartu Kucukcaglayan.
A notable miss in the award was the only Indian entry in the international competition, Harud directed by Aamir Bashir, a good film which should perhaps have won some award. Was it the current debate across the country on Kashmir that caused the festival to not give awards? One can never tell, for all the other films were equally good.
Manoj spoke pure Manoj Kumarese: “The world says that India is number one in production, but no one says that India is also the best filmmaking nation. Maybe a few years' later people will also say that they get the best films from India.”
