After a week’s entertainment with 219 handpicked movies from 39 countries across the globe, the 29 Kolkata International Film Festival came to an end today. Israeli film, Children of Nobody by filmmaker Erez Tadmor won the Golden Royal Bengal Tiger Award for the best film for ‘Innovation In Moving Images’ in international competition category along with a cash prize of Rs 51 lakh.

The gala closing ceremony, with a special dance performance on the theme song at Rabindra Sadan witnessed a star-studded event with Aditi Rao Hydari as the chief guest. The team of eminent filmmakers from various corners of the world chose Carlos Daniel Malave from Venezuela as ‘The Best Director’ for the Golden Royal Bengal Tiger Award’ under the category of ‘Innovation In Moving Images’ in international competition.

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The third award in the category for ‘Special Jury’ was announced for the film ‘Chalchitra Ekhun’ by producer and director Anjan Dutt. Three awards were given for another year in a row for the Hiralal Sen Memorial Award on Indian Language’s Films category, which is another important section of awards given at the KIFF every year.

Manipuri filmmaker, Haobam Paban Kumar’s ‘Joseph’s Son’ was deemed as the winner of the special jury award in the section while Shonet Anthony Barreto was given the award for the ‘Best Director’ for his film Avani Ki Kismat in the same category. The third award in the section for the Best Film was given to Gorai Phakhri.

Notably, the KIFF this year had a newly-added category, the Bengali Panorama’ section with seven films in Bengali language. The latest addition saw two awards in this category with the film Asampurno by director Amartya Sinha getting the special jury award and Mon Potongo by eminent producer Anjan Bose bagging the best film title in the section.

The winner of the Asian Select-NETPAC section, was given to the film Broken Dreams.Interestingly, the film narrates the plight of the citizens in the neighbouring country of Myanmar in the aftermath of the military coup and is a work of nine directors mostly living in exile.

The award for the best short film under ‘Competition on Indian Short Films’ with a prize money of Rs 5 lakh was given to Kamil Saif’s film Last Rehearsal while Challenge, by Ramen Borah and Sibanu Borah was announced as the winner of the award for the best documentary film under the ‘Competition on Indian Documentary Films’ category. The city’s iconic film festival celebrated the 29 edition this year with over 20,000 audience present at the inaugural ceremony and over one crore watching the event online. pix by Moul Mondal