Mumbai Film Festival honours Oliver Stone at closing ceremony

MUMBAI - The eight-day gala affair at the 12th Mumbai Film Festival concluded Thursday night in a grand way with active participation from Bollywood and presence of legends like Manoj Kumar and Hollywood filmmaker Oliver Stone.

The closing ceremony of the fest witnessed an award ceremony that was attended by Yash Chopra, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Sudhir Mishra, Madhur Bhandarkar, Arunoday Singh, Satish Kaushik, Prem Chopra, Hrishita Bhatt, Rituparno Sengupta, Rajshree Ojha and Aamir Bashir among others. The event was hosted by Fardeen Khan and Raima Sen.

The lifetime achievement awards were bestowed on two veterans Manoj Kumar and Oliver Stone, who received standing ovations by the audience.

After receiving the award Manoj said: “I’m happy to receive this award. I must salute all for wonderfully handling this festival. I want to tell the organisers that anytime they need me, I will always be there for them.”

The other lifetime achievement award winner, Stone, who has won Academy Award thrice, said in his acceptance speech that he is honoured to get this award.

“Thank you Mumbai. India has great culture, you make great movies and I am honoured to accept this award,” he said.

The festival, organised by the Mumbai Academy of Moving Image (MAMI), included 215 feature films, 15 documentaries, 24 short films on nine screens across Mumbai and over Rs. 1 crore in prize money.

It also had a 49-film Japanese retrospective, including five in the competition section. Supported by the government of Maharashtra, the fest was a Reliance Big Entertainment initiative.

The other awards that were announced at the closing event included the Golden Gateway Award for the best film in the international competition category, which was presented to Turkish film “Majority” directed by Seren Yce.

The Silver Gateway Award (SGA) Jury Grand Prize in the international competition category was presented to the Danish film “R” directed by Michael Noer and Tobias Lindholm.

The SGA for best director was presented to Thai director Anocha Suwichakornpong for her film “Mundane History”. Anocha was the only female director competing in the international competition category.

The SGA for best actor was presented to Bartu Kucukcaglayan for his performance in the film “Majority”. The silver gateway award for best actress was presented to Marie Hlne Bellavance for her performance in Canadian film “Vital Signs”.

The jury award for technical excellence was presented to a Greek film “Black Field” directed by Vardis Marinakis.

The audience choice Silver Gateway Award was presented to Spanish film “Biutiful” directed by Alejandro Gonzlez Irritu.

In the Dimensions Mumbai section the best film award was won by “Mumbaikar Ganesh” directed by Collin D’cunha. The runner up position was shared by two films — “Tee” directed by Avinash Medhe and “Mera Ghar” by Abhay Kumar.

“Mumbai Retina” directed by Narayan Vijay Thakur won the special mention award. Dimensions Mumbai was juried by Dev Benegal, Vishaka Dutta, Ashim Ahluwalia, Brahmanand Singh and Manish Acharya.

The ceremony was followed by the screening of director Robert Schwentke’s “Red” starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Mary Louise Parker and John Malkovich.