Tamil movie Nasir wins prestigious award at an international film festival

Arun Karthick’s Tamil film

Nasir

recently won the Grand Prix award at the 14th Andrei Tarkovsky Zerkalo International film festival,

Russia

. The Coimbatore-based filmmaker told us, “The cinema of Andrei Tarkovsky gives me faith and hope. To receive an award at a festival dedicated to his memory held in his hometown Ivanovo is a huge honour. Gestures like this encourage and validate the world one strives to create with image and sound to act directly on our hearts.”

Starring theatre veteran

Koumarane Valavane

as the titular character, the film explores a day in the life of a working-class

Muslim

man in Coimbatore, as he navigates

religious bigotry

. Arun received the honour through a virtual closing ceremony of the festival. “All the filmmakers were connected to an online portal, and we were able to experience the entire closing ceremony with music performances. It was a new experience indeed,” he recalled, adding that the responses of the winners were projected on their studio screens and further broadcast live to the audiences. Nasir, which is yet to be released in theatres, has also received the NETPAC Award for the best Asian production at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam, earlier this year.