The Washington DC South Asian Film Festival saw two major wins, when Bengali movie Kadambari bagged the best film honour award and the best actress trophy. Konkana Sen Sharma who played the main lead seemed delighted to have won such a prestigious award. Also, India’s Oscar entry film,Court took home the best director gong for Chaitanya Tamhane.

Kadambari

Kadambari

Kadambari, directed by Suman Ghosh, also stars Parambrata Chatterjee and is based on the life of late poet Rabindranath Tagore and his controversial relationship with his sister-in-law Kadambari Devi. Kadambari Devi enters the Tagore household as philanderer Jyotindranath’s wife at the age of nine, only to find herself lonely and sidelined. This lays the foundations for her bond with young Rabindranath — a relationship that grows with them till others start noticing their closeness.

Court on the other hand, is a courtroom drama film, written and directed by Chaitanya Tamhane in his directorial debut. Featuring a cast of newcomers, the film examines the Indian legal system through the trial of an ageing folk singer in a lower court in Mumbai.

Court

Court

Besides being sent for 88th Oscars as the country’s nominee in the best foreign film category, Court premiered at the 71st Venice International Film Festival on September 4, 2014, where it won the Best Film in the Horizons category and the Luigi De Laurentiis ( Lion Of The Future ) award for Tamhane. Jay Weissberg of Variety described the film as “an impressive debut that flays alive India’s judicial system thanks to an intelligent, superbly understated script.” The film went on to win 18 other awards at film festivals, including honours at the Mumbai, Vienna, Antalya, and Singapore film festivals. In 2015, the film won the Best Feature Film award at the 62nd National Film Awards, which honoured films released in 2014.

The three-day, Washington DC South Asian Film Festival (September 25-27) closed with with a movie RoughBook, directed by Ananth Narayan Mahadevan. The audience was also treated with a short film Interior Cafe Night by veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah. The fest also paid a tribute to late filmmaker Rituparno Ghosh. The National award-winner was known for acclaimed movies like Unishe April, Raincoat and Antarmahal.