{"id":5612,"date":"2025-05-12T15:01:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saffm.centrekabir.com\/?page_id=5612"},"modified":"2025-05-13T09:12:53","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T09:12:53","slug":"saffm-2025-award-winners","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/saffm.centrekabir.com\/fr\/saffm-2025-award-winners\/","title":{"rendered":"SAFFM 2025 Award Winners"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Best Feature Fiction<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Best Feature Documentary<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Best Short Fiction<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Best Short Documentary<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Audience Choice Awards<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Jury<\/span> Short Films<\/span> <\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Binita Mehta<\/strong> is Professor of French Emerita at Manhattanville College where she taught courses in French language, literature, and film. She is passionate about cinema, especially French-language cinema.\u00a0She has also written articles and given talks on films by South Asian diasporic filmmakers.<\/p>\n

Sachin Chatte<\/strong>\u00a0is a film critic residing in Goa, India. His career in film criticism began in 1993 and has spanned three decades. He is a member of FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) and has worked with the Mumbai International Film Festival (MAMI) as a curator and also curates films for the Cinephile Film Club under the Entertainment Society of Goa.<\/p>\n

Rakesh Sengupta<\/strong>\u00a0is a professor in the English department at the University of Toronto. His research and teaching focus on South Asian cinemas, film history, media archaeology, critical theory and global media cultures. He investigates universalist ideas of film archives, aesthetics and audiences to imagine an alternative history of the medium and offers a decolonial model of film historiography from the Global South.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Jury Award for<\/span> Short Fiction<\/span> <\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Winner: Mann Aasai (India, 2024) - Director: Arivarasan R<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: The film is about the final pursuit of land by the landless, where death, like life, becomes a socio-economic reality. Grounded and realistic portrayal of the dignity of death supported by highly competent filmmaking and strong performances.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n

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Runner-Up: My Father is Afraid of Water (India, 2023) - Director: Prateek Rajendra Srivastava<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: My Father is Afraid \u2013 Immersive and impactful storytelling that is elevated by stellar performances. The film is a tribute to the filmmaker\u2019s late father but also a rare document of human empathy, patience and gentleness.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n

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Special Mention: Cruelty (United States, 2024) - Director: Sam Das<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: A transwoman channels her inner Kali to fight a sex offender! Powerful on multiple levels as it subverts Hindutva\u2019s patriarchal iconography as well as the anti-trans ideology of the global far-right \u2013 all within a tight, suspenseful 9-minute runtime. Great use of special effects and an inventive blend of genres \u2013 fantasy, horror, sci-fi, and stalker.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Jury Award for<\/span> Short Documentary<\/span> <\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Winner: Log Kya Kahenge (India, 2024) - Director: Rafina Khatun<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: Shot in the cin\u00e9ma v\u00e9rit\u00e9 style, this important documentary shows how community radio offers an antidote to televisual and social media toxicity. The conversations seamlessly move from the quotidian to the profound as Muslim life in a Hindu-majoritarian society is explored with a lot of grace, nuance and sensitivity. Gender is also central to the film\u2019s politics as Gulnaz beautifully mediates the relationship between her community and the viewer.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n

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Runner-Up: Land of Dreams (United States, 2024) - Director: Ambarien Alqadar<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: This documentary offers a personal view on the immigrant life of a Sikh man after 9\/11. His filmmaking ambitions add an interesting metatextual layer. The myth of the American Dream is critiqued as the film exposes the different racial and economic vulnerabilities behind it \u2013 from post 9\/11 surveillance to the precarity of gig work at Uber.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n

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Special Mention: Never Say Die (India, 2023) - Director: Diya Gambhir<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: An essay film that seamlessly blends its subject matter with a distinctive artistic style. The filmmaker is highly original in executing her concept by incorporating art, old photographs, animation, and stop motion to tell her aunt\u2019s story.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Jury<\/span> Feature Documentary<\/span> <\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Vijaya Rao<\/strong> is a Professor at the Centre for French & Francophone Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her teaching and research focus on Literature of the Indian Ocean, Representation of India in French & Francophone literature, and Quebec Literature.<\/p>\n

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Thomas Waugh<\/strong> is a distinguished Professor Emeritus, Cinema, Concordia University. Born 1948, London, Ontario. Teacher, programmer, writer, critic, activist, Graduate of Guelph Collegiate, Western University and Columbia University. Retired from Concordia in 2017 after 41 years teaching film and sexuality\/queer studies, including Indian Cinema.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Jury Award for<\/span> Feature Documentary<\/span> <\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Winner: Agent of Happiness (Bhutan, 2024) - Directors: Arun Bhattarai, Dorottya Zurbo<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: Despite its feel-good premise\u2014Bhutan`s legendary national industry of happiness\u2014this documentary is an engaging narrative about the search for it and its meanings. The film\u2019s fresh frontal aesthetics, its stunning vistas, and its charming self-deprecating protagonist who is searching for a bride as well as the meaning of the Bhutanese legend, clinch a subtle but dazzling achievement that itself engenders happiness in the viewer.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n

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Runner-Up: 6-A Akash Ganga (India, 2023) - Director: Nirmal Chander Dandriyal<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: An intriguing documentary biopic whose living subject is absent from the screen! But not the soundtrack! This portrait of classical Hindustani instrumentalist Annapurna Devi is also a moving and profound reflection on guru shishya parampara, South Asian`s unique guru-student system, full of tender and illuminating reflections from gurus and shishyas(acolytes) alike.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n

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Special Mention: Rice (India, 2024) - Director: Tamjeed Elahi Khan<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: An original and insightful essay on India's sacred food staple, this film unexpectedly and subtly shifts gears from ``Films Division``-style pastoralism towards an eco-analysis of food wastage and a critique of the Hindu marriage industry. It is animated by an articulate and insightful matriarchal narrator who cuts no punches.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Jury<\/span> Feature Fiction<\/span> <\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Ridhima\u00a0Mehra<\/strong>\u00a0is Co-Founder and Director of Rough Edges, which enables, mentors and produces feminist and queer documentary films, foregrounding the distinct voices of women, trans and queer artists.\u00a0She draws on almost two decades of experience at the Public Service Broadcasting Trust, India\u2019s largest documentary body, co-leading the commissioning, creative realization, curation and outreach of close to 700 films, diverse in artistic form, subject and authorship.<\/p>\n

Rana Faizan Ali<\/strong>\u00a0serves as the Head of the School of Media and Mass Communication at Beaconhouse National University (BNU), where he utilizes his extensive experience in academia and the media industry to shape the next generation of media professionals. A seasoned academician, broadcast journalist, and media trainer, Rana has cultivated a diverse career that spans critical domains of media, including disinformation, production, and strategic planning.<\/p>\n\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>

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Jury Award for<\/span> Feature Fiction<\/span> <\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>
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Winner: Village Rockstars 2 (India, 2024) - Director: Rima Das<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: A gentle, sensitive, poetic film that invites us to experience and reflect on the complex simultaneity of chaos and tenderness inherent to life. It deftly weaves together the deeply intimate and personal, unfolding in the context of a larger overwhelming reality, offering no easy or neat resolutions, because there are none. Throbbing with the absence of an empathetic state on the one hand and rampant plunder of the earth on the other, worsening every catastrophe for lands and people pushed to the margins, the film emphatically records the power of simple dreams and everyday joys in making life possible in the midst of pain and conflict.<br \/>\nDhunu’s evolving self, her love for music, her interiorities, relationships, desires and resilience – all shine through authentically, along with glimpses of innocence that are truly precious. With fine performances, evocative camera and sound work, this is a skillfully crafted and beautiful film.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n

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Runner-Up: Pooja, Sir (USA, Nepal, 2024) - Director: Deepak Rauniyar<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: A compelling film that adeptly explores complex questions of identity and privilege at several levels - individual, family, community and nation, powerfully reminding us that belongingness is a fragile construct. In ensuring that conflict, aggression and discrimination are not mere plot points in the story, it accords them the ferocity with which they operate amidst us, around us and in us. From exclusion and violence that come from ethnicity, skin colour and class to gender and sexuality, the film forces us to confront our complicity in their active perpetuation in the everyday, in as much as it allows the acknowledgement that social capital can often only go so far before we too can be othered.<br \/>\nThe mundanities and pressures of daily life and relationships expertly presented along with the larger pursuit of justice, however ephemeral, the film presents its characters as deeply human, uncertain and flawed. With powerful camerawork, sound design and a strong edit, this is moving, empathetic and strong commentary.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n

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Special Mention: Shambhala (Nepal, 2024) - Director: Min Bahadur Bham<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: Special Mention to Shambhala for its very gentle and contemplative exploration of life, relationships and loss through physical, emotional and spiritual turmoil and growth, set against beautiful and expansive landscapes and the embodied experiences of gender in a unique cultural context.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n

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Special Mention: Nayab (Pakistan, 2024) - Director: Umair Nasir Ali<\/h6>\n

Jury Citation: Special Mention to Nayab for powerfully bringing to life the everyday conflicts, complications, desires, love, and human solidarity that make dreams and their achievement possible, especially for women under patriarchy.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n<\/div> <\/div>\n <\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Best Feature Fiction Best Feature Documentary Best Short Fiction Best Short Documentary Audience Choice AwardsJury Short Films Binita Mehta is Professor of French Emerita at Manhattanville College where she taught courses in French language, literature, and film. She is passionate about cinema, especially French-language cinema.\u00a0She has also written articles and given talks on films by [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5612","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saffm.centrekabir.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saffm.centrekabir.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saffm.centrekabir.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saffm.centrekabir.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saffm.centrekabir.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5612"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/saffm.centrekabir.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5655,"href":"https:\/\/saffm.centrekabir.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5612\/revisions\/5655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saffm.centrekabir.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}