Beauties and Beast

After Rehman stepped off the stage — leaving a lasting impression of grace and ageless beauty — another woman whose beauty has been immortalised through popular fairy tales took centre stage. Blancanieves,which is Spanish for ‘Snow White’,is an achingly beautiful modern adaptation of the popular fairy tale. Directed by Pablo Berger,the film has Snow White escape the cruelty of her stepmother to become a matador along with seven dwarf bullfighters. The retelling,however,does not go for a fairy-tale ending. Thus,making the story appear closer to real life. This black-and-white silent movie — a tribute to the early era of cinema — dazzles with brilliant cinematography,acting and script. This makes it the perfect choice for the festival that showcased nearly 230 movies this year.

In between the appearance of these two dominating beauties of the evening,the march of winners took place at the closing ceremony. Aquí Y Alla? (Here And There) was declared the Best International Competition Film and Ashim Ahluwalia’s Miss Lovely won Best Film in India Gold category. The other movie which received lots of attention was Beast Of The Southern Wild. The movie got the Jury Grand Prize and its lead actor Dwight Henry got the best actor award. It was also chosen as the best film by Mumbai Young Critics.

Shahid bagged the runner-up trophy in the Indian Gold section — first-ever award for its director Hansal Mehta. The special jury award in this section was given to Manjeet Singh for Mumbai Cha Raja. The winner in the ‘Celebrate Age’ category was Night Boats (Nocni Brodovi) by Igor Mirkovic while The Delay (La Demora) by Rodrigo Pla was the runner-up to the Best Film.