Sikandar and Samaantar nominated at Bollywood & Beyond Film Festival, Germany
Mumbai, June 15, 2009: BIG Pictures’ two films ‘Sikandar’ and ‘Samaantar’ have been nominated at Bollywood & Beyond Film Festival to be held in Stuttgart, Germany from 14- 19 July, 2009.
While ‘Sikandar’ has been selected as a part of the official competition and would compete for the ‘German Star of India’ award, Marathi language film ‘Samaantar’ is competing in the ‘Audience Award’ category at the Bollywood & Beyond Film Festival.
Mahesh Ramanathan, chief operating officer, BIG Pictures says, “The selection of ‘Sikandar’ and ‘Samaantar’ reaffirm our strategy of taking Indian films global and are a strong shot in the arm for BIG Pictures’ efforts to walk away from the beaten track and produce world cinema titles in 9 Indian languages. The nominations will hopefully turn into awards thus enabling these films to expand their distribution footprint internationally. We are confident ‘Sikandar’s’ bold counterpoint against terrorism will continue to resonate strongly in more festivals & with film makers around the world. With ‘Samaantar’ Amol Palekar’s mastery of his craft has been rewarded again.”
‘Sikandar’ is a suspense thriller starring Parzaan Dastur and Ayesha Kapur along with R. Madhavan, Sanjay Suri and Arunoday Singh. The film has been written and directed by Piyush Jha. Sikandar’ was also recently screened at the International Film Festival of Los Angeles (IFFLA).
‘Samaantar’ is a heart- wrenching drama starring Amol Palekar and Sharmila Tagore. The film is written by Sandhya Gokhale and directed by Amol Palekar himself.
The Bollywood & Beyond Film Festival is the only festival in all of Germany which is entirely dedicated to Indian films. The Festival started in the year 2004 and is currently in its fifth year. In 2008, the festival had approximately 13,000 visitors.