Pa Ranjith wins 'Best Director' award for his 'Kaala'

Director

Pa Ranjith

, known for his strong opinion on caste-related issues, has won the award for the Best Director at the Dalit Film and Cultural Festival (DALIFF). He won the honour for the Rajinikanth-starrer 'Kaala' at the festival, which was held in New York. Interestingly, he’s touched on the Dalit movement and caste oppression in his directorials like '

Kabali

' and 'Kaala', and production, '

Pariyerum Perumal

'. Interestingly, his next film, which will be in Hindi, is based on tribal freedom fighter, Birsa Munda.

A source says, “DALIFF was part of a two-day extravaganza, which was conceptualised and hosted by Ambedkarite organisations based in the US. This is the first edition of the festival, and was held on February 23 and 24. Pa Ranjith, Nagraj Manjule and Niharika Singh inaugurated the festival, which screened films that spoke about Dalit stories, in Tamil, Marathi, Malayalam, and Nepali. At this festival, Ranjith, Nagraj and

Subodh Nagdeve

won the Best Director awards – for 'Kaala', 'Fandry' and 'Bole India Jai Bhim', respectively. Apart from the winning entries, Mari Selvaraj’s 'Pariyerum Perumal', Neeraj Ghaywan’s 'Masaan' and Jayant Cherian’s 'Papilio Buddha' were among those films that were screened on the occasion.”

The event also saw the screening of a few documentaries, including 'Kakoos', 'Pistulya', 'Dalan Serial', 'The Battle of Bhima Koregaon', 'Gandhi, Untouchables and Me' and 'We Have Not Come Here To Die'.