Ottamuri Velicham, Kho Ki Pa Lu win top awards at 15th Indian Film Festival Stuttgart

First-time filmmaker Rahul Riji Nair's Malayalam film Ottamuri Velicham, dealing with the issue of marital rape, won the Best Film award at the recently concluded 15th Indian Film Festival Stuttgart. Kho Ki Pa Lu (Up Down And Sideways), a documentary about rice farmers in Nagaland, won the Best Documentary award.

 In the recently announced Kerala State Film awards, the film won four awards — Best Film, Best Editor, Second Best Actress (Pouly Valsan) and a Special Jury Award for lead actress Vinitha Koshy.

Nagraj Popatrao Manjule's Pavasacha Nibandh: An Essay Of The Rain won the Best Short Film award. Director Jatla Siddhartha won the Director's Vision Award and the Critic's Award for his debut film Love And Shukla (2017). Saraswathi Balgam's documentary Sisya: The Disciple (2017) won the Audience Award.

The Indian Film Festival Stuttgart opened with the screening of Hindi film Kuchh Bheege Alfaaz (2017) and closed with Jatla's Love And Shukla. Other films like Pushkar Shrotri's Marathi film Ubuntu (2017),  Mahesh Narayanan's Malayalam film Take Off (2017), Anurag Kashyap's Mukkabaaz (2018), Dipesh Jain's In The Shadows (2017), Shashanka Ghosh's Veere Di Wedding (2018), Shashank Khaitan's Dhadak (2018) were also screened during the festival's run.

The awards, also known as the German Star of India, had cash prizes to go with the trophies. Winner of the Best Feature Film award was given 4,000 euros (approx. Rs3.2 lakh), while the Best Short, Best Documentary and audience award winners all received 1,000 euros (approx. Rs80,000). The 15th Indian Film Festival Stuttgart was held from 18 to 22 July 2018 in Germany.