The 6th edition of the Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival, an initiative to mark the birth anniversary of Late Shri Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, who is regarded as the father of Indian Cinema, took place on 30 April, 2016 at Delhi. This festival in the memory of the legendary figure fondly remembered as Dada Saheb Phalke witnesses a pool of films of all genres and formats every year on 30 April right from its inception in 2011.
This year too, the festival witnessed a large number of films across genres like live action and animation of varied formats like documentary, feature films, shorts and ad films.
The VFX heavy Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bollywood blockbuster Bajirao Mastani won the award for the Best Feature Film and also NYVFXWAALA, co-founder, Prasad Sutar won the award for the Best VFX for this film which enthralled the audience with the use of appealing visual effects.
The Best Animated feature was won by The Return produced by Sky Frames Studios while, the Best Animated Feature Jury and Best Screenplay award was won by Bal Ganesh 3 produced by Shemaroo Entertainment. Director Vijay Milton won the Best Director award for Toonz Animation’s Little Kalari Warriors while, Toonz Animation’s Pakdam Pakdai 2 won the Special Festival Mention. Adventures of Appu and Gappu produced by Magicwand Animation won the Special Festival Mention Jury award.
In the Animated Short category, Studio Eeksaurus’ Fisherwoman & Tuk Tuk won the Best Animated Short award while, Maya Digital’s Shiva won the same award as per the Jury. Chhaya produced by The National Film & Television School, India won the Best Animated Short-Student and Phalke-The First Seed produced by MAAC won the same as per the Jury.
Animated short Agrinoui produced by A. Chaviaras Productions and Rabbit Blood by SVS won the Special Jury Mention award. Studio Eeksaurus’ What is your brown number? won the Special Jury Mention- Student award while, Chetan Sashital won the Best Music award for the Fisherwoman & Tuk Tuk short.
Teammate Workers’ animated short Khelna Bati, Yellow Marble Films’ The Box and Reliance AIMS’ One Day to Next won the Special Festival Mention award.
Suresh Eriyat’s Studio Eeksaurus Productions won the Best Animation Production House for their exemplary work in the animation genre.
The festival witnessed films from all over the globe as it aimed to celebrate the excellence in cinema. The festival has been providing a chance to filmmakers to showcase their creativity at a large platform and inspire the world to create further good quality films and considerably enhance the innovation of cinema.