For the fourth year in a row, India has triumphed in the Best Performance by an Actor category at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards (ASPA). Manoj Bajpayee picked up his second trophy at the event for his performance in Devashish Makhija's Bhonsle.
Bajpayee first won the award for his acclaimed turn as Professor Siras in Hansal Mehta's Aligarh (2016). The next two years, the award was won by Rajkummar Rao for Newton (2017) and Nawazuddin Siddiqui for Manto (2018).
Accepting the honour, Bajpayee thanked the APSA and said Bhonsle is "a very, very special film" for him. The actor also described his victory as "poetic justice" for everyone connected with the project.
The gracious @BajpayeeManoj wins Best Performance by an Actor for BHONSLE: "This film is a very very special film to me and winning this film is a poetic justice for everyone who made this film. Thank you APSA." #APSA2019 pic.twitter.com/l8hijWGa21
— Asia Pacific Screen Awards (@APScreenAwards) November 21, 2019
Bajpayee was not the only Indian winner at the 13th edition of the awards. Filmmaker Ridham Janve won the Young Cinema award for his debut film, The Gold-Laden Sheep And The Sacred Mountain.
And the #APSA2019 goes to... pic.twitter.com/XVL7hniZ5y
— Asia Pacific Screen Awards (@APScreenAwards) November 21, 2019
The Palme d’Or winner Parasite (2019), by South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, won the award for Best Feature Film while Kazakh filmmaker Adilkhan Yerzhanov won the Achievement In Directing award for A Dark, Dark Man (2019).