Aparna Sen's Bengali film, The Japanese Wife, has won the best film award at the recently-concluded Hidden Gems Film Festival in Calgary, Canada.
The film, distributed in North America by Databazaar Media Ventures (DMV), was awarded the Amolite Trophy. Amolite is the official gemstone of the Province of Alberta.
The story of the film in English, Bengali and Japanese revolves around a young village school teacher (Rahul Bose) marrying his Japanese pen friend (Chigusa Takaku) over letters and remaining true and loyal to her throughout his life, while actually never meeting her.
"We knew that the film would do well at the festival, but it was beyond our comprehension that 92 per cent would vote in favour of this film," said DMV chairman Oney Seal.
The Hidden Gems Festival normally has a distinguished jury which selects the movie. This year the audience was asked to vote.
Festival director Niru Bhatia hailed the film as a "love poem on celluloid".
