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Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April scored a double win at the 17th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsa), taking home prizes for best film and best performance for Ia Sukhitashvili.

The Georgian feature centres on a skilled obstetrician at a maternity hospital, who comes under scrutiny after a tragic episode, threatening her secret side job providing unsanctioned abortions. The film premiered at Venice where it won the special jury prize and went on to play Toronto and San Sebastian, winning best film in Zabaltegi-Tabakalera competition at the latter. Metrograph Pictures picked up North American rights last month.

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Georgian drama film “April” took double honors on Saturday at the annual Asia Pacific Screen Awards, winning the best film prize and the best performance prize for Ia Sukhitashvili.

Directed by Dea Kulumbegashvili, the film portrays the determination of an obstetrics and gynaecology provider in the face of accusations about the death of a newborn child. The film premiered at the Venice and Toronto festivals in September, earning a special jury prize in Venice and the best film prize in the Zabaltegi-Tabakalera competition.

Sukhitashvili was present at the Apsa ceremony in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, to accept both awards.

Fellow Georgian filmmaker, Tato Kotetishvili was awarded the Apsa for best director for his debut feature, dark comedy “Holy Electricity,” which sees cousins selling neon crucifixes door to door in Tbilisi.

Women’s stories and films from India were also major themes among the awards winners.

Payal Kapadia’s “All We Imagine as Light,...

In the heart of Manipur, the trip of a cheeky schoolboy provides a window into the region’s latent tension. Lakshmipriya Devi’s debut film “Boong” transforms a simple coming-of-age story into a complex examination of childhood, culture, and conflict.

Boong, a spunky young protagonist with a knack for pranks and a trusty slingshot, navigates a world far more complicated than his cheerful demeanor would suggest. Set against Manipur’s militarized eastern border, the film explores how personal stories intertwine with larger social factors.

Boong, who has been sent to a new school due to his rebellious behavior, befriends Raju, an “outsider” who is facing racial persecution. Together, they go on a covert expedition to locate Boong’s curiously absent father, Joykumar, who may be involved in local political strife.

Their journey turns into an unexpected experience, showing Manipur’s complex social terrain. From encountering migrant workers to meeting members of the local transgender community,...

Girls Will Be Girls director Shuchi Talati says 2024 is an incredible year for independent Indian women filmmakers. “We’re collectively creating a tapestry of stories that have not been given space in our culture,” she says.

Talati’s debut feature set the tone in January by winning the audience award in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival while its 22-year-old lead actress, Preeti Panigrahi, bagged the special jury award for acting. The mother-daughter drama was more than six years in the making, with Talati first pitching it at the 2018 Nfdc Film Bazaar Co-Production Market.

She hasn...

Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light and Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April head the nominations for the 17th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (Apsa), each securing nods in five categories.

Both will compete for best film, best director, best screenplay, best cinematography and best performance at the awards, which will be presented on November 30 at a ceremony on Australia’s Gold Coast.

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All We Imagine As Light, billed as an ode to nocturnal Mumbai, premiered in Competition at Cannes, where it won the festival’s grand prix. April, the story of a Georgian ob-gyn who faces accusations,...

The International South Asian Film Festival of Canada (iSAFF) just completed its fourteenth edition and hosted the North American premiere of Usman Riaz’s “The Glassworker.” Riaz’s film is the first hand-drawn animated feature from Pakistan and the country’s official Academy Award entry for 2025.

The festival honors filmmaking in various categories; short films (international and North America), documentary filmmaking, feature filmmaking, and the annual Sher Vancouver Award for Best LGBTQ+ Film. Jurors across categories were filmmakers, content creators, performers, and more, including “Ms. Marvel” star Iman Vellani and Shahani Goswami, star of the U.K.’s official Oscar entry, “Santosh.”

This year also introduced the Rbc Film Fund in partnership with Royal Bank of Canada, which will provide five thousand Canadian dollars to each of five different iSAFF films. A year from now, iSAFF plans to celebrate the first batch of recipients from this fund and the work they’ve achieved.

How many of those not raised in an English-speaking Bible belt area can recite a prayer in English? For good ideas, follow Boong, the nine-year-old cheeky monkey who can make his school principal, teachers and the kids repeat the lyrics of Madonna’s 1989 hit “Like A Prayer” like it came straight from the book of Psalms. This public “lesson” turned fiasco aimed at Boong as the punishment for vandalizing the school property with his expert skills in slingshotting, belongs to the opening five minutes of Lakshmipriya Devi‘s family movie dedicated to love, friendship and peace in Manipur, named after the titular character.

Boong is screening at Toronto International Film Festival

Brojendro aka Boong (Gugun Kipgen), a lively boy with plenty of ideas on how to shake up the world of adults, is longing for his father Joykumar (Hamom Sadananda) who left to work in Moreh, (a town bordering Burma/Myanmar) years ago.

A political exploration gift-wrapped in a coming-of-age drama, Lakshmipriya Devi’s debut feature “Boong” follows its lively titular schoolboy on an adventure along India’s militarized eastern border. In search of his missing father, Boong (a firecracker Gugun Kipgen) helps paint a portrait of modern Manipur, the isolated Indian state neighboring Myanmar, at a time when violent eruption feels all but inevitable.

As it happens, the state did, in fact, descend into ethnic conflict not long after “Boong” wrapped production, making Devi’s film a bittersweet time capsule. When the film begins, Boong is a mischievous prankster with spectacular aim. His father, Joykumar, taught him how to use a slingshot before leaving for the border city of Moreh in search of work.

Boong’s teachers don’t quite know how to handle or punish his amusing practical jokes, like when he recites Madonna’s “Like A Virgin” when asked to lead his school in prayer.

Exclusive: Canada’s International South Asian Film Festival (iSAFF) has unveiled its lineup. The festival will take place in Surrey, British Columbia and run from September 25 to 29.

Featuring 19 world premieres, eight North American premieres, and 23 Canadian premieres, the festival will open with Lakshmipriya Devi’s debut feature Boong. Boong will have its world premiere at TIFF on September 7.

The iSAFF’s closing film will be Amar Wala’s debut feature Shook, which stars Saamer Usmani and Amy Forsyth (Coda). The Canadian production is financed by Telefilm Canada and Ontario Creates.

Under this year’s festival theme of “Crossroads,” the lineup also includes Usman Riaz’s The Glassworker, the festival’s first animated feature from Pakistan and dark comedy We Strangers, directed by Anu Valia.

Besides feature films, the festival will showcase 53 short films and five episodic series from South Asia and its diaspora.