Ahimsa, Tasher Ghawr, Seva, Nasir win at NYIFF 2021

Ramesh Sharma’s documentary Ahimsa — Gandhi: The Power Of The Powerless, the Kannada film Where Is Pinki? (2021), Sudipto Roy’s Bengali short Tasher Ghawr (2020) and the documentary Seva are among the films that won awards at the 21st New York Indian Film Festival (NYIFF) which concluded yesterday.

Ahimsa won the award for Best Documentary Feature while Akshatha Pandavapura claimed the Best Actress award for her performance in Pinki Elli? which also received the award for Best Screenplay.

Roy’s Tasher Ghawr won the award for Best Short Film. The festival shared the news on Twitter and congratulated the winners.

The Tamil feature Nasir (2020), directed by Arun Karthick, won the award for Best Film while Seva was awarded as the Best Documentary Short.

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Siddharth Menon won the award for Best Actor for his work in the Marathi film June (2021). The film is slated to be released on the Planet Marathi OTT platform later this month.

Ajitpal Singh won the Best Director award for Fire In The Mountains.

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Ahimsa portrays the influence that Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence had on other world leaders, including Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama.

Seva explores the ideal of service enshrined in Sikhism and highlights the atrocities committed against people of the religion in the US in recent times.

Pinki Elli? deals with the state of a married woman during the COVID-19 lockdown last year.

This the second year that the festival went online in association with MovieSaints, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.