Ram Kamal receives Best Director Award for Rickshawala through courier
THANKS TO CORONA EFFECT, RAM KAMAL RECEIVES BEST DIRECTOR AWARD FOR RICKSHAWALA THROUGH COURIER
Jyothi Venkatesh
Instead of hosting a grand ceremony, the organisers decided to courier the trophy to winners keeping the Corona Virus in mind.Director Ram Kamal Mukherjee was surprised to receive a courier a day before the 21 days lockdown announcement from Cafe Irani Chai International Festival with a note from Festival Director Mohan Das. “Keeping the ongoing Corona Virus and health concern of all the winners, we have decided to courier the certificates and trophies to the winners,” says Mohan Das. Ram Kamal Mukherjee won the Best Emerging Director for his bilingual Bengali/Hindi feature film Rickshawala. The festival was supposed to honour all the winners at a grand ceremony last week in Mumbai. International delegates and bureaucrats from Iran Embassy were supposed to attend the function. “We decided to have a very low key screening of the films for our jury members under proper sanitized ambiance. And instead of pushing the award ceremony we thought of sending the trophies to their address through courier,” added Das.
Ram Kamal’s film Rickshawala got applause from the jury members for simple yet impactful narrative of hand pulled rickshaw drivers in Kolkata. The film marks debut of Bollywood actor Avinash Dwivedi in Bengali cinema. It’s a tribute to Om Puri and Balraj Sahani, who portrayed the role of a rickshwala in City Of Joy and Do Bigha Zameen respectively. The film also stars Kasturi Chakraborty and Sangita Sinha as female lead. Shot in Kolkata this film has been shot by Modhura Palit, the only women cinematographer to be honoured at Cannes Film Festival in 2019.While most national and international film festivals are being either cancelled or postponed till further notice, they decided to keep the festival on. “I am glad that they decided to honour the winners like this, it’s a wise decision keeping the Corona pandemic in mind,” says Ram Kamal.