Tamil Nadu-based indie filmmaker Arun Karthick’s Nasir has won the NETPAC Award for the best Asian film premiering at the International Film Festival of Rotterdam (IFFR), 2020. NETPAC, awarded to the best Asian feature film, was founded in 1995.
Based on Dilip Kumar’s short story Oru Gumasthavin Kathai (A Clerk’s Story), the film is produced by Stray Factory, Harman Ventures, Magic Hour Films, Cent Percent Films, Uncombed Buddha and Netherlands-based Rinkel Film.
Koumarane Valavane, theatre director of Pondicherry-based Indianostrum Théâtre, plays the lead in this film. Others in the cast include Sudha Ragunathan, Yasmin Rahman, Sabari and Bakkiyam Sarikar.
Nasir is the story of a Muslim man working in a textile shop in Coimbatore, set against the backdrop of the communal riots in the city in 2016.
The 79-minute film’s screenplay is written by Arun Karthick and Dilip Kumar. The film is edited by Arghya Basu while Saumyananda Sahi has worked on its cinematography.
Arun Karthick, who hails from Coimbatore, made his debut as a filmmaker with Sivapuranam – A Strange Case of Shiva. This film was screened in IFFR’s Bright Future category in 2016. Sivapuranam – A Strange Case of Shiva is a film on a young man’s voyeuristic obsessions with the photo of a girl taken during a strange encounter. Nasir is his second film.
The Tiger Competition award for this year at IFFR was won by The Cloud in her Room by Zheng Lu Xinyuan. It is interesting to note that in 2017 Malayalam filmmaker Sanal Kumar Sasidharan’s Sexy Durga had won the Tiger Award.
According to the information provided on IFFR’s website, other Indian films to win the NETPAC Award include Mani Kaul’s The Servant’s Shirt in 1999 and Dance of the Wind by Rajan Khosa the year before. Adoor Gopalakrishnan’s Vidheyan was the first film to win in this category in 1995.