German Star of India Award for Kannada movie Thithi

Stuttgart (Germany): "Thithi" has won the German Star of India Award for the Best Feature Film at 13th Indian Film Festival Stuttgart here and its director Raam Reddy feels "really excited and humbled".

"This festival in Stuttgart was the German premiere of 'Thithi', and I'm really excited and humbled that we won Best Film. This festival is special for me because it is one of the first places I exhibited my work internationally with my short film 'Ika' (Feather) at the same festival five years ago.

"With this award, we continue to perhaps be the most internationally awarded Indian film this year so far and I hope these are positive steps towards possibly securing the official Indian Oscar nomination for 2016," Reddy said in a statement.

Reddy’s Kannada language directorial debut won the honour at the festival, which was held at the Metropol cinema here from July 20-24.

A short video message by Reddy was played after "Thithi" won the award, as he was not present for the felicitation.

"Thithi" was competing with 15 other Indian films such as Hansal Mehta’s acclaimed "Aligarh", the commercial hit "Neerja" and the Kalki Koechlin and Naseeruddin Shah-starrer "Waiting".

The jury of the festival comprised the acclaimed Indian-born French filmmaker Prashant Nair, Thorsten Peters of Rapid Eye Movies, and Konstanze Welz of the company German Films.

"Thithi" was screened in over 12 international and national film festivals and won 16 awards including the prestigious National Film Award.