The Gollapudi Srinivas Memorial Award for 2009 has been awarded to director Amit Rai for
his Hindi film Road to Sangam starring Paresh Rawal and Om Puri.
"The film was selected from 15 other nominations across the country in Bengali, English, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil and Telugu," a release from Gollapudi Memorial Foundation said.
The award, comprising a cash prize of Rs 1.50 lakh and memento, would be presented to Amit Rai by Bollywood actor Anil Kapoor at a function in Chennai on August 12.
On the occasion, veteran artist Girish Karnad would deliver the memorial lecture on the topic Mythology on Celluloid. Sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan, actress Vidya Balan and director Madhur Bhandarkar would also participate, it said.
Road to Sangam which also stars Pawan Malhotra, Javed Shaikh and Swati Chitnis, has won many awards including Best first film director's award in the International Film Festival of South Africa, Best film in the Macon film festival, Best Narrative Feature in both the White Sands International film festival in New Mexico and the Radar Hamburg International film festival in Germany.
The film is a story of mechanic named Hasmatullah (Paresh Rawal) who has been entrusted the job of repairing an old car, not knowing the historic significance of it that it once carried the ashes of Mahatma Gandhi which were immersed in the Triveni Sangam. It had released worldwide in January this year.
Some other award winners include Leslie Carvallho for The Outhouse (English), Shyama Prasad Agni Sakshi (Malayalam), Manju Bora Baibhab (Assamese), Subrata Sen Ek Je Ache Kanya (Bengali), Janaki Viswanathan Kutti (Tamil), Ram Madhvani Let's Talk (English), the statement added.
The award is instituted by writer and actor Gollapudi Maruthi Rao and his family, to perpetuate the memory of his son Srinivas, who died in 1992 in an accident during the shooting of his debut movie.
