Baaram, The Ice Cream Sellers, Washing Machine receive top awards at SAFFMontréal

The Kabir Cultural Centre has announced the awards for the 11th edition of its annual South Asian Film Festival of Montréal (SAFFMontréal).

The festival was held in a hybrid format from 19–28 November this year. A total of 54 films were screened at the festival, of which seven were on-site and 47 others were available online.

The films in competition were assessed by an international jury. The winner of the award for Feature Fiction was Priya Krishnaswamy’s Tamil film Baaram (2020), while the runner-up was Akshay Indikar’s Marathi film Sthalpuran (Chronicle Of Space). The Assamese film Songs For Rain received a Special Mention.

The winner of the Feature Documentary award was a film from Bangladesh, The Ice Cream Sellers, while Pankaj Rishi Kumar’s Janani’s Juliet (2019) received a Special Mention.

The Short Fiction award was presented to Washing Machine directed by Anand Singh Chouhan. The Persian film Bad Omen was the first runner-up, followed by the Pakistani film No Beloved by Salman Alam Khan. Jyotsna Puthran’s Mixi received a Special Mention.

The Pakistani film Dunkey Following European Dreams by Syed Muhammad Hassan Zaidi was the winner of the Short Documentary award. The Heroes Of Our Times by Rangan Chakravarty and Bamboo Ballads by Sajeed Naduthody received a Special Mention.

Dushyant Yajnik, festival adviser, said, "The films selected and those rewarded by the jury had a common theme: how empathy, support and psychologically secure attachments, or the absence thereof, from family members, community leaders or host governments make all the difference in whether individuals and communities flourish or flounder."

Supported by the City of Montreal, City of Saguenay and Heritage Canada, SAFFMontréal is the only festival of its kind in the province of Quebec to present films by independent filmmakers from the Indian subcontinent and its diaspora all over the world.