Govt must encourage young directors: Sathyu at BIFFes

Veteran filmmaker and theatre director M S Sathyu on Thursday said young directors in the Kannada film are making great films using innovative technologies and the government must encourage such films by providing subsidies.

He was speaking after the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 15th edition of the Bengaluru International Film Festival’s (BIFFes) valedictory ceremony.

“Back in my days, we used analogue cameras to shoot cinema. Today, we have novel and innovative technology with a lot of support from the people. The Kannada industry has scores of young filmmakers who have been doing great films of late. They also need encouragement and financial aid from the government to keep the industry going,” Sathyu said.  

He said that the government must form a committee that looks into providing subsidies to young filmmakers. 

Best Film awards

A total of 320 films were submitted to the Best Film Awards. In this, 32 were shortlisted to compete across three categories in Kannada, Indian and Asian sections. 

In the Asian cinema category, Jordan’s film ‘Inshallah A Boy’ bagged the first prize, with ‘Sthal’ (Marathi) and ‘Sunday’ (Uzbekistani) receiving the second and third best film awards. Kannada film Mithya, directed by Sumanth Bhat, was a ‘Special Jury Mention’ in the Asian category. 

In the Indian Cinema Competition, Sujay Dahake’s ‘Shyamchi Aai’ won the first prize while Tamil’s ‘Ayothi’ and Malayalam’s ‘Chaver’ won the second and third prizes respectively. Dahake’s ‘Shyamchi Aai’ bagged the Fipresci Award by the jury. 

In the Kannada cinema category, Amar L’s ‘Nirvana’ won the Best Film award followed by ‘Kandeelu’ and ‘All India Radio’. The special jury mention in the Kannada cinema category was ‘Kshetrapathi’. Raj B Shetty’s ‘Swathi Mutthina Male Haniye’ won the Netpac Jury Award. 

Katalin Moldovai’s ‘Without Air’ was screened as the concluding film.  Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy president Sadhu Kokila, BIFFes brand ambassador-actor Dhananjaya, commissioner of the Department of Information and Public Relations Hemanth M Nimbalkar and the film festival’s artistic director N Vidyashankar were among others present on the occasion.