Indian filmmaker in the running for debut award

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BRITISH DIRECTOR Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie, a 3D animation science fiction film, will open the 12-day 56th London film festival on Wednesday night.
The red carpet premiere of Indian director Prakash Jha’s Chakravyuh, a film on the Maoist insurrection, will be held at Leicester Square on Thursday evening. This is the first time a Bollywood film is premiering at the prestigious London film festival. Director Prakash Jha will be accompanied by actors Abhay Deol and Arjun Rampal at the red carpet gala screening. The trio will also be attending the opening film premiere of Frankenweenie on Wednesday.
Indian director Anand Gandhi’s first film, Ship of Theseus, a documentary-style drama about three separate stories based in Mumbai tackling identity, justice, beauty and death, is among the 12 films in the running for Sutherland Award, which recognises the most original and imaginative directorial debut at the festival.
Indian-born director Deepa Mehta’s British-Canadian production of Indian-born writer Salman Rushdie’s Booker Prize-winning novel Midnight’s Children, is among 12 films in the running for the best film award at the festival.
Booker-winning writer Kazuo Ishiguro, British foreign correspondent and world affairs editor John Simpson, novelist Sebastian Faulks are among the jury members for the awards at the festival.
British actress Helena Bonham Carter and her partner, director Tim Burton, have been nominated to receive the British Film Institute’s highest honour, the BFI fellowship, at 2012’s festival.
“I feel very touched and grateful to the BFI for this tremendous honour. It means more than I can put into words to receive the BFI fellowship and to be included alongside the great directors who have received it before me,” Burton said in a statement.
“I am somewhat bewildered and not sure that I am deserving of such an honour as a fellowship from the BFI, but shall accept it with deep gratitude,” said Bonham Carter, who stars in Mike Newell’s adaptation of Charles Dickens’ famous novel Great Expectations, which will bring a close to the festival.