Bengali/Kashmiri works share best documentary award at SiGNS

The tenth edition of the SiGNS digital video festival, which will be remembered for recording the highest-ever participation, concluded here today.
Awards at festival's tenth edition reflected its unique character as space for alternative films, organisers said.
"Randu Kurippukal" (Two Notes, 2015), a Malayalam short film directed by Gireesh Kumar K, took home the SiGNS 2016 award for Best Short Fiction.
The award for Best Documentary in competition was shared between Bengali entry "Tender is the Sight" (2014), helmed by Torsha Bannerjee, and "Vanishing Glaciers"(2015), a production in Kashmiri, by Raja Shabir Khan.
The winning selections - the themes of which are in keeping with the festival's unique subaltern character - were judged to be the best of strong fields in both competition categories by an eminent jury chaired by documentary filmmaker Rakesh Sharma with film critic Premendra Mazumdar and cinematographer Fowzia Fathima.

The function also saw the John Abraham Award for Best Malayalam Feature Film 2015, with Rs 1 lakh in prize money, awarded toP S Manu's"Munroe Thuruth".

Special Mention awards for S Sunil's "Marubhagamand" Sanal Kumar Sasidharan's "Ozhivudivasathe Kali" were also handed out .
"It is heartening to note that the short film and documentary scene in India is vibrant and thriving. Especially impressive was the varied range of thematic concerns as well as narrative styles and cinematic treatments in the selected films," said Sharma, who delivered the jury report during the closing ceremony at Ernakulam Town Hall.
Recommending greater emphasis on films about contemporary social, economic and political complexities, he commended the inclusion of films on the LGBTQ community's concerns as also other films probing issues surrounding culture and gender.