With top honours in two prestigious categories and another accolade in one of the festival’s most popular sections, Indian productions had a banner year at the 48th edition of the Toronto International Film Festival or TIFF.
Director Tarsem Singh Dhandwar’s first feature in eight years, 'Dear Jassi', set mainly in Punjab, captured TIFF’s juried competition section, Platform Award. Debutant director Jayesh Digambar Somalkar’s Marathi feature, 'A Match' (Sthal), won the Network for the Promotion of Asian Pacific Cinema or NETPAC Award, also selected by a jury. Meanwhile, the mainstream Bollywood thriller 'KILL' emerged as first runner up for the People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award.
Dhandwar made his directorial debut in film with 'The Cell' in 2000, which garnered an Oscar nomination. He went on to direct four more features, the latest being 'Self/less' in 2015. He had already gained renown for his music videos for acts like REM and Lady Gaga and ad films for major brands. The Punjabi film, 'Dear Jassi,' is based on the true life story of a honour killing of an Indo-Canadian, 25-year-old Jaswinder Sidhu, a resident of Maple Ridge in British Columbia. Jassi’s family hired killers in Punjab in 2000 after she eloped with Mithu, considered an unsuitable match. In its statement, the Platform jury said, “Dear Jassi was a unanimous choice for this year’s Platform Award for its honest and poignant portrayal of a subject matter that still affects large portions of individuals forced to live under the inhumanity of bitter caste systems throughout the globe.”
'KILL' is the highest profile film of the three, and was the first runner up in the People’s Choice Midnight Madness Award, which is based on voting by the audience. The goriest film to have ever emerged from India, one of its producers, Karan Johar, has described it to media as “blood porn.”
