The 54th edition of India’s Goa Film Festival concluded Tuesday evening with a tribute to Michael Douglas, who picked up the fest’s Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Cinema.
Previous winners of the award — which organizers say celebrates individuals whose unparalleled contributions have enriched the cinematic landscape — include Martin Scorsese, Bernardo Bertolucci, Dilip Kumar, Carlos Saura, Krzysztof Zanussi, and Wong Kar-wai.
“It’s a tremendous honor to receive this award. It’s a career life achievement. When I heard about the award, my family and I were elated,” Douglas said. The veteran Basic Instinct actor was joined by his wife, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and son Dylan Douglas.
Later, during his acceptance speech, Douglas touched on world affairs, highlighting the role he believes cinema can play in bringing people together. Douglas also gave a shoutout to what he described as some of his favorite Indian films, including RRR, Om Shanti Om, and The Lunchbox.
“Cinema is one of the few mediums that has the power to unite and transform us. It transcends divisions, whether that be geography, race, language, and even time,” AP reported he said in his acceptance speech. “Today, our global language of cinema is more meaningful than ever,” Douglas added.
Elsewhere on the eve, the festival’s competition awards were handed out. Persian pic Endless Borders took the Golden Peacock award for the best film. Directed by Abbas Amini, the film follows Ahmad, an exiled teacher living in a small village with mostly ethnic Baloch along the Iranian border with Afghanistan. He acquaints a family of illegal Hazara refugees who are fleeing an immediate threat from the Taliban’s rise to power. Synopsis reads: Ahmad begins to realize that prejudice and dogma are dictating their lives and his perspective on what is right and what is wrong changes drastically. He decides to save a young forbidden love, but that decision can have dire consequences for everyone.
Bulgarian Director Stephan Komandarev took the Silver Peacock award for best director for his film Blaga’s Lessons. Panchayat Season 2, directed by Deepak Kumar Mishra received the newly introduced award for the Best Web Series (OTT). The series chronicles the life of an engineering graduate who joins as a Panchayat secretary in a remote fictional village of Phulera of Uttar Pradesh due to a lack of better job options.
