Manipuri documentary film Phum Shang won the Golden Conch Award for the Best Documentary Film (upto 60 minutes) at the 14th Mumbai International Film Festival for Documentary, Animation and Short Films, MIFF 2016, which drew to a close on Wednesday evening. Swiss film My Name is Salt and Indian entry Placebo shared the Gold Conch award for the Best Feature length Documentary Film.
52-minute documentary Phum Shang, directed by Hao Bam Pabankumar an alumnus of the Satyjit Ray Film & Television Institute, Kolkata, critically examines the serious environmental problems faced at the Loktak lake. The largest fresh water lake in North East India, characterised by its unique floating biomass known as ‘Phumdi’, is today considered a dying lake due to unchecked human activity. Pabankumar won the Golden Conch Award and a cash prize of Rs 3 lakh.
My Name is Salt directed by Mumbai-born, Zurich-based Farida Pacha is a film about the journey of thousands of families to the Rann of Kutch to extract whitest salt in the world. Chandigarh based filmmaker Abhay Kumar’s 96-minute film Placebo explores the stress and pressure faced by medical students.
My Name Is Salt also won the Best Cinematographer award for Lutz Konermann, while Placebo won the Award for Best Editor. Placebo was also declared the Most Innovative Film in the competition section.
Posters of 'My Name is Salt' and 'Placebo'.
Debanjan Nandy’s animation film Chhaya bagged the first prize in the Animation Category of International Competition. Mumbai filmmaker Devashish Makhija’s Agli Baar shared the Best Short Fiction Film honours with the UK entry Solo Finale by Ingo Putze. Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the Best Debut Film of a Director went to Far From Home by Copenhagen, Denmark based filmmaker Nitesh Anjan.
Here is the list of winners:
The International Jury for the Festival comprised prominent documentary makers Don Askarian from Germany, Jesper Andersen from Denmark, Mathiue Roy of Canada, Siddharth Kak and Gitanjali Rao. Mike Pandey, Uma DaCunha, Biju Dhanapalan, Audrius Stonys (Lithuania) and Jane Yu (Taiwan) were the members of the National Jury.
The 2016 edition of MIFF showcased over 385 films at the festival.
