Manto director Nandita Das honoured at Asia Pacific Screen Awards; Nawazuddin Siddiqui named Best Actor

Manto director Nandita Das was presented the prestigious FIAPF Award for achievement in film in the Asia Pacific region while actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui took home the best actor award at the 12th Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA) in Brisbane, Australia on Thursday. Variety reports the Indian actress-filmmaker’s second feature Manto, based on the life of legendary Urdu author Saadat Hasan Manto (played by Siddiqui), premiered in UnCertain Regard in Cannes this year and was picked up by festivals including Sydney, Toronto and Busan. [caption id=“attachment_4462641” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Manto; Nandita Das. Images via YouTube/Twitter[/caption] Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Shoplifters, which won the Palme d’Or earlier this year, also won the top honour — Best Feature Film — at APSA. Shoplifters is about a small-time thief who takes a young girl home to his family; after seeing scars from abuse, they decide to keep her and raise her as their own. The South Korean film Burning, a lyrical and anxious adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s short story Barn Burning, won the Jury Gran Prize at the award show. The Lebanese film Capernaum — about a 12-year-old boy who takes his parents to court “for giving me life” in a world of pain and suffering — won Nadine Labaki the Best Director award.