At the recently concluded 15th International Film Festival of Thrissur, the FIPRESCI-India award for Best Debut Film of a Director was awarded to the Malayalam film Run Kalyani (2019) by Geetha J “for its extraordinary treatment of the human psyche in subtle cinematic language with an aura of brevity, artistic excellence and reverberating connotations”.
The FIPRESCI jury comprised Premendra Mazumder, Madhu Eravankara and Prem Chand. The 15th International Film Festival of Thrissur was held from 6–12 March 2020.
Run Kalyani explores the duties, dreams and desires of a young cook, Kalyani, who takes care of her ailing aunt. The film takes us into the mundane pattern of the lives of working people, with each day bringing something different. The film was premiered at the Kolkata International Film Festival 2019 where it won the Special Jury award and has been at several festivals across the country.
Speaking about the win, Geetha said, “It has been a long road for me to make my first feature film, and as a woman I had to overcome many obstacles along the way. So this award is doubly sweet. Not only is it a recognition and vindication, but it is from an eminent FIPRESCI jury who know and understand good cinema.”
Writer, director and producer Geetha J made her first documentary, Woman With A Video Camera (2005), and received an International Film Development Fund for her first script, A Certain Slant Of Light (2008). She has collaborated with multi-award-winning documentary filmmaker Ian McDonald on all his works, most notably the internationally acclaimed feature documentary Algorithms (2012) about blind young chess players from India. Run Kalyani is her debut feature fiction film.