Dharmendra, Rishi Kapoor and Carlos Saura honoured

Mumbai, Mar 14 (UNI) Veteran actor Dharmendra received the Lifetime Achievement award and Rishi Kapoor was acclaimed for his significant contribution to Indian cinema for over 35 years at the concluding ceremony of the 10th MAMI International Film Festival, Mumbai.

Acknowledging this recognition at the function last night, Rishi Kapoor said, ''Usually, film industry personalities do not reveal their age but I want to say that I have not been working for 25 years instead I have been working for 35 years and I am proud of that.'' The First Global Lifetime Achievement award was given to Carlos Saura, a renowned Spanish filmmaker, while lyricist-filmmaker Gulzar was conferred the award for outstanding contribution to Indian film music. ''Each artist needs this kind of reassurance to prove that whatever he has been doing is right,'' Gulzar said after receiving the award.

Speaking to newspersons, Mumbai Academy of the Moving Image (MAMI) Festival Chairman Shyam Benegal expressed confidence that this festival had come to stay in the metropolis and the edition was better than the previous ones.

A total of 140 films from 45 countries were showcased in the Festival held from March 6 to 13. It also included 92 films showcased in the Global Vision section. The foreign and Indian retrospectives were devoted to films by Andrej Wajda and Ritwik Ghatak respectively. The country in focus was China and the filmmaker in focus was Carlos Saura.

The Chief Guest of the event, evergreen Bollywood star Dev Anand, senior filmmaker Yash Chopra, Aishwarya Rai, and Shyam Benegal gave away the awards.

The Kodak award for technical excellence in sound recording was presented to Hitendra Ghosh who has been in the industry for more than 25 years and has worked on about 1800 films including all those of Benegal.

In a new concept called ''Dimensions Mumbai'', five-minute films based on different aspects of Mumbai were showcased by aspiring filmmakers under 25 years of age. A total of 82 entries had been received for this section. ''Vapsi'' by S Srinivasan on the hardships that a young aspiring actor faces in Mumbai, bagged the first prize, while Aishwarya S got the second prize for ''Mumbai Half Marathon'' and Ganesh More bagged the third prize for a film ''Life in Mumbai''. The awards carrying cash components of Rs 100,000, Rs 30,000 and Rs 20,000 were sponsored by Mrs Jaya Bachchan and given away by her daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. The special jury awards were given to ''Handful of Sky'' by Neha Singh and ''Patri'' by Akshara Prabhakar.

In the Indian feature Film Competition, Darsheel Safary was awarded for playing the dyslexic child Ishaan Awasthi in ''Taare Zameen Par'', Swathee Sen for playing Janki in ''Antardwand'' while both, the Best Film and FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) awards were bagged by the Marathi film ''Tingya'' by Mangesh Hadawale on the delicate issue of farmers suicides. ''Frozen'' which is the first full length feature film to be shot in Ladakh won the Special Jury Award for its director Shivaji Chandrabhushan.

Tina Ambani representing Reliance (Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group) which sponsored the Festival, MAMI Trustee Kiran Shantaram, Manmohan Shetty, Festival Artistic Director Sudhir Nandgaonkar, Yash Chopra, Ranbir Kapoor, and his mother Neetu Kapoor, Indian Documentary Producers Association President Jahnu Barua, Amit Khanna of Reliance Entertainment, filmmaker Vinod Pande, and several other celebrities were present on the occasion. The event was conducted by television star Gaurav Kapoor. Singer Mansi Scott also performed at the function on English and Hindi songs.

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