MIAAC Indian Film Festival Winners

The MIAAC Indian Film Festival, sponsored by the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council, wrapped up five days of premiere screenings, special events, chic parties and industry networking events with a gala awards ceremony on Sunday night, November 15th at the Walter Reade Theatre at New York's Lincoln Center. The ceremony included the US premiere of Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury’s ANTAHEEN. Stars Rahul Bose and Kalyan Roy attended the premiere along with actors and filmmakers including Shabana Azmi, Sarita Choudhury, and Aasif Mandvi.

The Executive Director of the Indo-American Arts Council, Aroon Shivdasani gave closing night remarks and introduced the closing night film. The post-screening discussion with the filmmaker and talent was moderated by Program Director of The Film Society of Lincoln Center, Richard Peña, who also expressed enthusiasm for further collaboration with the MIAAC Film Festival in the future.

The evening concluded with the awards ceremony, with the winners receiving awards in seven categories. Several celebrated actors and filmmakers presented the awards including Amitav Ghosh, Javed Akhtar, and Mira Nair. Festival winners were chosen by a jury comprised of ten members specializing in film, and the jury process was monitored by KPMG. Awards were also presented to three student NYU filmmakers from Professor Karl Bardosh’s Cell Phone Cinema Class, with each filmmaker making a one- minute film entitled My MIAAC on their cell phone cameras.

Overall, this year’s festival premiered 44 Indian and Diaspora films and held special events, with a sidebar on Kashmir in Film, and discussion panels presented with the NYU Department of Cinema Studies at the NYU Tisch School of the Arts focusing on themes like Queer Bollywood and the changing landscape of Indian film business. The festival also held a daylong series about Indian film in cooperation with KPMG and SAMMA.

2009 MIAAC AWARD WINNERS:

· Best Short Film Award: Good Night directed by Geetika Narang.

· Best Documentary Film Award: The Salt Stories directed by Lalit Vachani.

· Best Actor Award: Aasif Mandvi for Today’s Special.

· Best Actress Award: Tannishtha Chatterjee for Bombay Summer.

· Best Screenplay Award: Two Paise for Sunshine, Four Annas for Rain by Deepti Naval.

· Best Director Award: Joseph Mathew-Varghese for Bombay Summer.

· Best Film Award: Bombay Summer directed by Joseph Mathew-Varghese.

For more information on the MIAAC Film Festival, visit: www.miaacfilmfest.org.

Sandy Mandelberger, Awards Watch Editor

19.11.2009 | AwardsWatch's blog

Cat. : Aasif Mandvi Aasif Mandvi actor actress American Muslims Amitav Ghosh Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury Awards Watch Best Bombay cellular telephone Cinema of India Cinema Studies Company Location Company Technology Contact Details Deepti Naval Director editor Entertainment Entertainment Executive Director Good Night Indian people Indo-American Arts Council Javed Akhtar Joseph Mathew-Varghese Karl Bardosh Kashmir KPMG Lincoln MIAAC Film Festival MIIAC Indian Film Festival Mira Nair Mira Nair Nationality New York New York's Lincoln Center NYU Person Career professor Richard Pena Sandy Mandelberger Sarita Choudhury Shabana Azmi Tannishtha Chatterjee Technology Technology The Film Society the Film Society of Lincoln Center the MIAAC Film Festival The MIAAC Indian Film Festival Today's Special www.miaacfilmfest.org AWARDS