KOCHI:
Marathi film, Chaukat directed by Umesh Mohan won the prestigious Best Film Award at the inaugural Eastern-Chemmeen International Short Films Awards, 2016.
The Best Film Award carried a prize money of Rs 1,00,000 and a memento. Awards were also presented in seven other categories. At an impressive ceremony at the Padma Theatre, cine actor Padmashree Madhu gave away the awards in front of a packed audience.
Merlin Babu won the Best Director Award for her Malayalam film, Laddoo, Vinay Fortt was chosen for the Best Actor Award for his performance in the Malayalam movie, Page 8, and Shamsudheen P Kuttoth won the award for the Best Script, for his script for Page 8.
A highlight of the Eastern-Chemmeen Short Film Awards was a special award for the best movie with the transgender theme. This award was bagged by the English film I wonder Y?, directed by Jay Jithin Prakash. The Most Popular Cinema Award was bagged by Yaksham, directed by Jithin Rajagopal.
The award for the Best Cinematographer went to Sandeep Lankah for the Tamil film, Oomai, and Shweta Venkat Mathew won the Best Editor Award for her editing of the Hindi film, Taandav.
The awards were decided by a jury chaired by renowned film director Dr Biju (Bijukumar Damodaran) and comprising sound expert Jayadevan Chakkadath, cinematographer MJ Radhakrishnan, editor Manoj, film critic Dr Meena T Pillai, and Angel Glady an expert on films based on the transgender theme. Siraj Shah was the jury co-ordinator.
The Eastern-Chemmeen International Short Film Awards have been instituted by the Global Initiative for Excellence, publishers of the Global-k magazine. Besides the Eastern Group, the event was supported by the Film and Television Institute of India, Pune, the Shenoy’s Group of Theatres, Ergo Consultants, the Public Relations Council of India, online movie releasing platform Reel Monk and social media expert Mansoor Piman.
M.D. Varghese, Chairman, Global Initiative for Excellence & Joe A Scaria, Executive Director
addressed the gathering. T. Vinay Kumar, Chief Coordinator, Eastern Chemmeen Short film Awards.
