Curtains down on LIFF; ‘Kaafiron Ki Namaaz’ wins top honours

By Radhika Bhirani
Leh, June 30: The third edition of the Ladakh International Film Festival (LIFF) has concluded here with "Kaafiron Ki Namaaz" by two Mumbai-based youngsters winning the maximum accolades.

The movie, shot in Kashmir, won the best feature film, best screenplay, best actor (shared by Alok Chaturvedi and late Chandrahas Tiwari) and best debut director for 26-year-old Ram Ramesh Sharma at the closing ceremony held at the Sindhu Sanskriti Kendra here Sunday night.

The film’s producer, Bhargav Saikai and Sharma, are dropouts of Subhash Ghai’s Whistling Woods International film institute. They left their course midway to make "Kaafiron Ki Namaaz".

The closing ceremony started with the screening of much-awaited Hollywood film "Transformers: Age Of Extinction".

The ceremony, hosted by actress Shilpa Shukla, saw the presence of names like Deepti Naval, Rajit Kapur, and Shaji N. Karun.

Meanwhile, festival director Melwyn Williams was conspicuous by his absence.

Members of the jury, which was presided over by Govind Nihalani, had praised "Kaafiron Ki Namaaz" for its gripping, powerful narrative and interesting storytelling format.

Nihalani had left on the second day of LIFF, which was held in this Jammu and Kashmir region for three days starting Friday.

The festival, this year, began with Kamal Swaroop’s "Rangbhoomi" and it also saw the Asia premiere of Anurag Kashyap’s "Ugly" and Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s "Bollywood – The Greatest Love Story Ever Told".