Film based against Indian backdrop wins award at TIFF

A British film, Slumdog Millionaire, made against the Indian backdrop, has won the Cadillac People's Choice Award at the 33rd Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).  

The film directed by a British national, Danny Boyle, is a heart-warming saga of an 18-year-old underdog who surmounts heavy odds to win the jackpot on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire", with eccentricities of Mumbai's slum as a backdrop.        

The TIFF awards were made public yesterday evening at the end of the 11-day festival, which closed with the screening of the Scottish period thriller, Stone of Destiny.    
    
Though produced with American and British money, "Slumdog Millionaire", was shot entirely in Mumbai with actors like Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Mahesh Manjrekar and Saurabh Shukla, besides two newcomers, Dev Patel and Freida Pinto.  

One of the film's high point is the outstanding musical score by A R Rahman.         

India figured, albeit less directly, on TIFF's roll of honours in another significant category - the Best Canadian Short Film award.  

The 20-minute fiction film, Block B, directed by Chris Chong Chan Fui, a Canadian filmmaker of Malaysian origin, delves into the lives of a community of Indians residing in a building grid in Kuala Lumpur.        

The Diesel Discovery Award for the best debut film went to renowned British visual artist Steve McQueen's Hunger. The profoundly moving cinematic essay depicts the last six weeks in the life of an Irish hunger striker Bobby Sands.