India’s entry into this year’s Oscars ‘Koozhangal’ (meaning Pebbles) won the Best Film at the 20th Dhaka International Film Festival which concluded on January 23.
It’s a Tamil-language drama directed by director PS Vinothraj and is produced by top South Indian actress Nayanthara and her husband Vignesh Shivan under their banner Rowdy Pictures.
The film was earlier screened at the 50th International Film Festival Rotterdam held in Netherlands last year, where it received the Tiger Award at the festival. It was also selected as India’s entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 94th Academy Awards, but did not make the final nomination.
In an earlier interview actress Nayanthara, who is also the producer of this film. claimed it was their honest attempt at filmmaking.
“When we saw the film, we just loved the film and the way Vinoth had showed the life that he has seen. So, it was very different for us to see. We just fell in love with the film and felt that we should definitely get it under our banner and this should be the first film that we produced,” said Nayanthara.
'Koozhangal' follows the story of an alcoholic husband who has a fall-out with her and later begins to chase her along with his son to win her affections back. The movie stars actors Chellapandi as Velu as the young son, Karuththadaiyaan as Ganapathy, the abusive and alcoholic father, actress Raniyamma as a grandmother, and star Banu Priya as a woman with a baby among others.
Apart from this, Malayalam actor Jayasurya also got a nod at the Dhaka International Film Festival for his role in Ranjith Sankar-directed film ‘Sunny’. In the survival drama, he played a wealthy man who’s forced to quarantine at a plush hotel due to COVID-19 outbreak after foreign travel and has to cope with isolation and being desolate.
The nine-day long festival saw over 225 films across 70 countries participate.
