Melbourne: The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) has announced the nominations for its 14th edition, which includes titles such as Darlings, Kantara, Pathaan and Bhediya, among many others.
This year, the festival welcomes a new addition to its jury panel, the Oscar-winning Australian filmmaker Bruce Beresford, known for directing films such as ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ and ‘The Contract’.
The IFFM advisory committee after meticulous consideration of hundreds of films and series from across Indian cinema, have finalised the nominations of films and series which have been released between June 1, 2022 to May 31, 2023.
Leading the pack in the film categories, including Best Film, Best Actor, and Best Actress, are notable productions such as Darlings, Monica O My Darling, Ponniyin Selvan and Kantara.
In the OTT category, series such as Trial By Fire, Jubilee, and Delhi Crime Season 2 have garnered the highest number of nominations. The winners of the prestigious IFFM 2023 Awards will be announced during the festival, at their annual gala night August 11, 2023 which is set to be hosted at the Hamer Hall in Melbourne.
The complete list of nominees are as follows. In the ‘Best Film’ category, the titles include Bhediya, Brahmastra, Darlings, Jogi, Kantara, Monica, O My Darling, Pathaan, Ponniyin Selvan 1 and 2′ and ‘Sita Ramam’.
Gulmohar, Joram, Pine Cone and Zwigato, among many others, have made to the Best Indie Film.
For the Best Director nominees are Anant Mahadevan, Anurag Kashyap, Ashish Avinash Bende, Devashish Makhija, Don Palathara, Kanu Behl, Mani Ratnam, Nandita Das, Prthivi Konanur, Siddharth Anand, Rima Das and Vasan Bala. Dulquer Salmaan, Kapil Sharma, Manoj Bajpayee, Mohit Agarwal, Paresh Rawal, Rajkummar Rao, Rishab Shetty, Shah Rukh Khan, Vijay Varma and Vikram are in the Best Actor (Male) category.
For the Best Actor (Female), Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Akshatha Pandavapura, Alia Bhatt, Bhumi Pednekar, Kajol, Mrunal Thakur, Neena Gupta, Rani Mukherjee, Sai Pallavi and Sanya Malhotra.
Best Series has titles such as Dahaad, Delhi Crime Season 2, Farzi, Jubilee, SHE Season 2, Suzhal: The Vortex, The Broken News and Trial By Fire.
Best Actor (Male) – Series has names Abhay Deol, Abhishek Bachchan, Aparshakti, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Shahid Kapoor, Sidhant Gupta, Vijay Sethupathi and Vijay Varma.
The Female category in the series section has Rajshri Deshpande, Rasika Dugal, Shefali Shah, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Sriya Reddy, Tillotama Shome and Wamiqa Gabbi.