Goutam Ghose’s Raahgir wins four awards at Washington DC South Asian Film Festival

Filmmaker Goutam Ghose’s Raahgir, starring Adil Hussain and Tillotama Shome, has bagged four awards at the Washington DC South Asian Film Festival which was held on 28 and 29 August.

Raahgir won awards for Best Feature Film, Best Director for Ghose, Best Male Actor for Hussain and Best Female Actor for Shome.

News of the awards was shared on the film's official Facebook page. 'We are glad to announce that team Raahgir wins top awards at DCSAFF,' the post read.

Hussain and Shome confirmed the news on Twitter and thanked the festival for honouring Raahgir and the team.

In June, the film was screened as the opening film at the UK Asian Film Festival in London, where Ghose was named Best Director and Shome took home the Best Actress trophy.

Shot in the state of Jharkhand in 2019, the film is about two strangers who meet in difficult conditions and team up for the cause of humanity.

Recalling how he decided to collaborate with Ghose, producer Amit Agarwal said, “Fascinated by Goutam Ghose’s body of work, I developed an enormous desire to work with him. It’s like a dream come true for me working with him on Raahgir. We have known each other for many years now and we were planning to collaborate for a Bengali film, but one fine day he called me to narrate a story for a Hindi film."

Agarwal revealed that Ghose wanted to shoot in the monsoon, which was only a month and a half away at the time. "I took it as a challenge and with the support of all concerned I was able to start the shoot as per Goutam-da’s schedule and requirement," he said. "In fact, we started our shoot a day in advance; such was the homework of the production team."

Now that Raahgir has won multiple awards at prestigious film festivals and garnered a lot of appreciation, Agarwal is looking forward to releasing the film in India. "As theatres have reopened and life is returning to normal, we are hopeful and will try our best to release the film either on OTT or in theatres," the producer said. "People are following and contacting us continuously on social media, through messages and also personally, as they want to know about the release and are eagerly waiting to watch the film."