Filmmaker Madonne Ashwin, who made her directorial debut with mandelawon the Indira Gandhi Award for Best First Film by a Director at 68e The 2022 National Film Awards were announced on Friday. In addition to that, the director also won the Dialogue Writer Award for the film.
Madonna barred mandela, a political satire film titled by Yogi Babu. The film features the actor in the role of a Dalit barber, whose vote becomes crucial in local polls, due to the swing vote situation.
Talk to Cinema Express, Madonna Ashwin said: “I am so happy that the hard work has paid off. I have to say this is not a one man effort. My team also won the prizes. All the more, I am delighted that a political satire has been recognized. It is a new thing because; generally, these films can be perceived as being created with political agendas. But this movie managed to hurt no one in the process. I see that the biggest success of the movie is the recognition it got among ordinary people.
Madonne also enthusiastically stated that the team did not expect two awards for the film, but were pleased that the film was able to gain recognition. It should be noted that the earlier short film by Madonne dharmam had won a special mention from the jury of the 61st National Film Awards 2013. “I had already won the National Film Award for a short film, but winning for Mandela is really joyful.”
mandela is currently streaming on Netflix.
Meanwhile, it is a big win for South Indian films at the National Film Awards this year. Other Tamil movies that came out with flying colors were Sivaranjiniyum Innum Sila Pengalum and Soorarai Pottru. Whereas Soorarai Pottru won numerous awards including Best Film, Best Actor (Suriya), Best Actress (Aparna Balamurali), Best Background Music (GV Prakash) and Best Screenplay (Shalini Usha Nair and Sudha Kongara) , Sivaranjiniyum Innum Sila Pengalum won Best Editing (Sreekar Prasad), Best Supporting Actress (Lakshmipriyaa Chandramouli) and Best Feature Film in Tamil.
