The nominations for the 16th Asian Film Awards were announced last week. While Mani Ratnam’s ‘Ponniyin Selvan 1’ has been nominated in six categories including best film, SS Rajamouli’s magnum opus ‘RRR’ also made it to two categories - best visual effects and best sound.
These are the only two Indian films that have made it to the nominations. A tweet from Asian Film Awards read, “The press conference of the 16th Asian Film Awards has ended successfully just now! The 16th Asian Film Awards will be held at 7:30pm on 12 March (Sunday) at the Hong Kong Palace Museum. The nomination list for the 16th Asian Film Awards and the jury president was announced.”
Mani Ratnam’s ‘Ponniyin Selvan 1’, which grossed over ₹500 crore during its theatrical run, has been nominated in six categories – Best Film, Sreekar Prasad for Best Editing, Ravi Varman for Best Cinematography, A.R Rahman for Best Original Music, Eka Lakhani for Best Costume Design and Thota Tharani for Best Production Design.
Rajamouli’s ‘RRR’, on the other hand, has been nominated for Srinivas Mohan for Best Visual Effects and Ashwin Rajashekar for Best Sound. It has emerged as one of India's most talked about films in 2022. It has been on the list of several best-of-the-year lists worldwide. The film’s team has been campaigning for the Telugu film in different countries amid the awards season.
‘RRR’ was released last March in cinemas. The film focuses on the lives of two real heroes and well-known revolutionaries – Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem. While Ram Charan played Ram, Tarak was seen as Bheem.