'Road to Sangam' bags P7 Audience Choice Award in Mumbai Film fest

Mumbai, Nov 6 : 'Road To Sangam' won the P7 'Audience Choice Award' on the concluding day of the 11th Mumbai Film Festival here last night.

The award, worth Rs 10 lakh, was presented by P7 News Channel Director Jyoti Narain to Amit Rai, writer and director of the movie.

The movie is about a God-fearing, devout Muslim mechanic named Hashmat Ullah (Paresh Rawal), who has been entrusted the job of repairing an old V8 Ford engine, not knowing the historic significance that it once carried the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi, which were immersed in the holy river 'Sangam'.

He is caught in a complex situation after a powerful bomb explosion rocks his town leading to the arrest of innocent Muslim youths of his locality. A strike to work is called by the prominent leaders played by Om Puri and Pavan Mallhotra, of his community to protest against the unjust treatment meted out to those arrested youths by the police. Will he support the protest and abandon the repair of the engine or go against the wishes of his community. Thus begins his journey. A journey of Gandhian values and principles. A journey of patriotism. A journey called 'Road To Sangam'.

The award function was graced by galaxy of stars Preity Zinta, Amitabh Bachchan, Yash Chopra, Prasoon Joshi, Shabana Azmi, Abbas-Mastan, Prem Chopra, Gulshan Grover, Kunal Khemu, Rituparna Sen Gupta, Archana Puran Singh and Parmit Sethi among others.

Director Kunal Kohli and actress Shefali Shah were the anchors of evening.

Speaking about the award, Mr Narain said 'We are glad that people have responded so well to the audience choice award. It’s a pleasure to be associated with Mumbai film festival. We have always participated in events that support our vision of ‘Good News’. It is always good to get connected with the masses as our channel programming also revolves around the viewers. We will be also presenting the audience choice award in the coming years as it is always good to align with viewers psychic.' Mr Rai said 'I am really happy that P7 News Channel has come up with this kind of award, as it helps us to showcase our work and really boosts our confidence to keep making good cinema that viewers appreciate.' P7 Audience Choice Awards was introduced for the first time this year, to give the audience a taste of their choice, whereunder audience got to vote for their favourite movie.

After more than two lakh voting across three festival venues - Fun Cinema (Andheri), Metro Big Cinema (Churchgate), Big Cinema (Ghatkopar) and online voting by viewers. The audiences were given a chance to put forth their preferences.

Besides the film, the Lifetime Achievement award was presented to Amitabh Bachchan, Young Critics Award was won by Whisper With The Wind, Best Actress to Paprika Steen for 'Applaus', Best Actor to Edward Hogg for 'White Lightnin', Best Director to Adrien Biniez for Gigannte, Best Film to 'White Lightnin', Jury Grand Prize was given to 'La Pivellina' (The Little One). In 7 days, 200 films from 56 countries were screened.

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
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