Masakazu Kaneko’s Ring Wandering, which explores Japan’s wartime past, won the top award at the 52nd International Film Festival of India that concluded on Sunday. The Golden Peacock winner in the International Competition section was selected for being a “beautifully photographed combination of fantasy and manga-inspired reality, reflecting a fascination with the echoes of the past reverberating in present-day Japanese society”, the jury headed by Iranian director Rakhshan Banietemad said in a press statement.
The Golden Peacock has a cash prize of Rs 20 lakh for Kaneko and Rs 10 lakh for producer Takashi Shiotsuki. Also on the jury were Ciro Guerra, Stephen Woolley, Vimukthi Jayasundara and Nila Madhab Panda.
The Best Director award went to Czech Republic’s Vaclav Kadrnka for Saving One Who Was Dead, described as “a very masterful and confidently envisioned visual tale of a mother and son caught in a twilight which conjures imaginations of life and death, where each portrait-style frame is composed and performed with telling details”.
Roman Vasyanov’s The Dorm, which examines corruption in the former Soviet Union, received a Special Mention in the International Competition category.
The Silver Peacock for Best Actor (Male) was bagged by Jitendra Joshi for his performance in Nikhil Mahajan’s Godavari. Joshi, who is also the Marathi-language drama’s co-producer, received cash prize of Rs 10 lakh.
Godavari explores family dynamics and inheritance through the experiences of Joshi’s rent collector. The movie also stars Vikram Gokhale, Neena Kulkarni, Gauri Nalawade, Priyadarshan Jadhav and Sakhee Gokhale.
Joshi’s performance was praised for a “brilliant performance [that] made it flow like a river from his rage to tears”.
Godavari also shared the Silver Peacock for Special Jury Award along with Brazilian actor Renata Carvalho for her performance in Rodrigo de Oliveira’s The First Fallen. The movie was praised as a “passionate and courageous attempt to chronicle the untold stories of suffering and discrimination suffered by the sexual minorities in 1980s Brazil”.
The Silver Peacock for Best Actor (Female) went to Angela Molina for Charlotte, “a captivating performance which elicits sympathy and frustration in equal measure”, the citation noted.
Simon Franco’s film stars Molina, an alumnus of Pedro Almodovar’s movies, as an actor who pursues a role in an upcoming production.
Director Mari Alessandrini’s Zahorí, which examines the travails of the indigenous people of Patagonia, won the Best Debut Feature Film award. According to the jury members, “Serious but sometimes witty and satirical, the debut director’s film lampoons religion and colonisation and gives respect to the organic indigenous people in an elegant and visually intelligent way.”
The Spanish-language The Wealth of the World, first-time director Simon Farriol’s drama about Chile’s war for independence, received a Special Mention from the jury in the Debut Feature Film Competition category.
The Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award had been previously given to Martin Scorsese and Istvan Szabo during the inaugural ceremony.
Renowned Chadian director Mahamat-Saleh Haroun’s Lingui, The Sacred Bonds won the ICFT-UNESCO Gandhi Medal. Lingui explores patriarchy through the relationship between a mother and her daughter. The film is Chad’s entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the Oscars.
The medial is awarded by the International Council for Film Television and Audiovisual Communication, Paris, and UNESCO. Lingui beat eight other films for the prize, including Koozhangal, 21st Tiffin and Niraye Thathakalulla Maram from India.