Germany Star of India award for Loktak Lairembi

By A Staff Reporter

IMPHAL | July 23

The top prize ‘German Star of India’ of Stuttgart’s 14th Indian Film Festival, Germany was given to Loktak Lairembi (Lady of the Lake), directed by Haobam Paban Kumar and the film has become a bestowed film prize amongst Indian filmmakers.

The award recognised the best Indian feature film, along with a cheque of 4,000 Euros sponsored by the main festival sponsor, the entrepreneur from Stuttgart and honourary consul of the Republic of India for Baden-Wu¨rttemberg and Rheinland-Pfalz.

Haobam Paban Kumar’s debut feature film Loktak Lairembi was world premiered at the Asian new current section of the prestigious 21st Busan International Film Festival 2016 and had its European screening at the 67th Berlin Film Festival 2017.

It has travelled to numerous film festivals and has won more than ten awards including the Best Environment Film at the 64th National Film Awards this year.

The film is based on the short story ‘Nongmei’ by Sudhir Naoroibam. It is about Tomba, a depressed fisherman who gets a gun accidentally and marvels with the gun as his power of self-protection.

He transforms himself to an assertive man who began to believe that the gun would solve all his problems.

Paban Kumar created an ethnographic thriller with his debut feature film. It is at Loktak Lake, a scenic paradise in the north-east of India, where extreme beauty meets extreme violence. The 14th edition represented a current cross section and mirror of the Indian society with 40 films.

The festival which was held from July 19 to July 23 July concluded last night with the award ceremony and it took the audience to a five-day journey of modern day Indian cinema. The festival opened with the comedy ‘Newton’ and the German premiere of ‘Lipstick under my Burkha’.