Pawan Kumar’s Lucia has won the audience award at the 4th London Indian Film Festival.
The crowd-funded film, backed by UK-based online outfit Distrify and Kannada cinema’s first crowd-funded film, played to sold out audiences across the city.
Director Kumar said: “To win this award in the face of such powerful competition is a dream come true for me. I thank the London Indian Film Festival for selecting the film for its world premiere and would also like to thank the London audience and the UK Kannada community for supporting the film.”
Anurag Goswami won the Satyajit Ray Foundation’s short film award, held in conjunction with LIFF, for Kaun Kamleshwar? (Who’s Kamleshwar?).
The jury, comprising Ill Manors producer Atif Ghani, documentary director Kim Longinotto, BBC London’s Sunny Grewal, shorts director Meghna Gupta and LIFF’s Satwant Gill, said: the short film was “confident and ambitious in its storytelling, gave us engaging characters and was genuinely cinematic.”
A special mention went to Vikram Dasgupta for Calcutta Taxi.
LIFF opened with Amit Kumar’s Cannes title Monsoon Shootout and closed with Bombay Talkies, a homage to the centenary of Indian cinemafrom Karan Johar, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Bannerjee and Anurag Kashyap.
The centrepiece ‘In conversation’ was with actor Irrfan Khan (Life of Pi, Slumdog Millionaire, D-Day), and LIFF also featured a rare ‘Life in Pictures’ Masterclass from South Indian director Adoor Gopalakrishnan.
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