A adukalam and Dookudu reigned supreme at the first South Indian International Movie Awards (SIIMA), with the former bagging four top awards in the Tamil category and the latter walking away with eight awards in the Telugu category.
Dhanush, who won two other awards, including the Best singer award for ‘Kadhal En Kadhal’ in Mayakkam Enna , won the Best Actor award (Popular awards category) for his role in Aadukalam .
Speaking on the occasion, the actor said the award was special as he was receiving it on his son Linga’s birthday. He requested the audience to make the occasion special by wishing his son, and the audience obliged.
Aadukalam , which fetched Vetrimaran the Best Director Award, also earned top honours for G. V. Prakash and Velraj, who were presented the Best Music Director and Best Cinematographer Awards respectively.
Preventing Aadukalam from making a clean sweep were Kaavalan , which fetched Asin the Best Actress Award, and Ko , which was chosen as the best film.
Vikram, who won a special appreciation award for his performance in Deiva Thirumagal , said, “I am proud to be an Indian, but I am prouder to be a south Indian tonight. All of us hold our heads high. Today, some of the biggest hits in Bollywood are remakes of Tamil and Telugu films and that speaks volumes for the cinema we do.”
In Telugu, Dookudu stood tall as Gopi Achanta, its producer, collected the Best Film Award. It also fetched Srinu Vaitla the Best Director Award, Mahesh Babu the Best Actor Award, Brahmanandam the Best Comedian Award and Thaman the Best Music Director Award. The Best Actress Award, however, went to Nayantara for her role in Sri Rama Rajyam .
In the Kannada section, Sanju Weds Geetha took home five awards, including those for Best Director (Nagashekhar) and Best Actress (Ramya). The Best Actor Award went to Puneet Rajkumar for Huduguru .
The honours were evenly shared under the Malayalam category, with Indian Rupee winning the award for the Best Film and Mohanlal bagging the Best Actor Award for his fine performance in Pranayam. Rajesh Pillai won the Best Director Award for his brilliant work in Traffic .
Madhavan, Parvathy Omanakuttan and Lakshmi Manchu were the hosts for the evening during which the Lifetime Achievement Award was presented to Kannada star Ambareesh.
SIIMA, which was held for two days last week — the Generation Next Awards Night was held at the Park Hyatt on day one and the Grand Gala Awards Night was held at the World Trade Centre in Dubai on day two — was well attended by top stars from the four southern industries.
The event, aimed at taking South Indian cinema to the world in a manner similar to how the IIFA promotes Bollywood, also featured several dance performances by actors, including Shruti Haasan, Amala Paul, Sameera Reddy, Charmi and Deeksha Seth.
(The writer was in Dubai at the invitation of SIIMA)
