‘Laapataa Ladies’, ‘12th Fail’ lead IFFM 2024 nominations

New Delhi: Kiran Rao’s ‘Laapataa Ladies’, ‘Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani’, directed by Karan Johar, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s ‘12th Fail’ and ‘Kaathal: The Core’ by Jeo Baby have emerged as the top nominees at the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) Awards 2023.

The 15th edition of IFFM is set to commence on August 15, coinciding with Independence Day and conclude on August 25. The winners will be announced on September 16 at the annual gala night, set to be hosted at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne.

Besides ‘Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani’ and ‘12th Fail’, nominees in the ‘Best Film’ category are ‘Amar Singh Chamkila’, ‘Chandu Champion’, ‘Dunki’, ‘Jawan’, ‘Maharaja’ and ‘Premalu’.

The ‘Best Film - Critics’ Choice’ segment is populated by titles such as ‘Laapataa Ladies’, ‘Kaathal: The Core’, ‘Dear Jassi’, ‘Girls Will Be Girls’, ‘Kabuliwala’, ‘Rapture’, ‘Sapta Sagaradaache Ello’ and ‘Thadavu’.

In the ‘Best Actor’ category, Shah Rukh Khan has secured a double nomination for ‘Dunki’ and ‘Jawan’. Diljit Dosanjh (‘Amar Singh Chamkila’), Fahadh Faasil (‘Aavesham’), Kartik Aaryan (‘Chandu Champion’), Mammootty (‘Kaathal: The Core’), Mithun Chakraborty (‘Kabuliwala’), Ranveer Singh (‘Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani’), Sparsh Shrivastava (‘Laapataa Ladies’), Vicky Kaushal (‘Sam Bahadur’) and Vikrant Massey (‘12th Fail’) are also vying for the top prize.

Debutantes Nitanshi Goel and Pratibha Ranta of ‘Laapataa Ladies’ and Alizeh Agnihotri (‘Farrey’) have earned a nomination in the ‘Best Actress’ category, alongside Alia Bhatt (‘Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani’), Beena R Chandran (‘Thadavu’), Jyothika (‘Kaathal: The Core’), Parvathy Thiruvothu (‘Ullozhukku’), Preeti Panigrahi (‘Girls will be Girls’), Sanya Malhotra (‘Mrs’) and Swathi Reddy (‘Month of Madhu’).

The ‘Best Director’ race has contenders in Imtiaz Ali (‘Amar Singh Chamkila’), Kabir Khan (‘Chandu Champion’), Karan Johar (‘Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani’), Nithilan Saminathan (“Maharaja’), Rahul Sadasivan (‘Bramayugam’), Rajkumar Hirani (‘Dunki”) and Vidhu Vinod Chopra (‘12th Fail’).

Nominees in the ‘Best Director - Critics’ Choice’ category are Christo Tomy (‘Ullozhukku’), Diwa Shah (‘Bahadur: The Brave’) and others.

Web series ‘Made in Heaven 2’, ‘Panchayat’ S3, ‘Kohrra’ and ‘Poacher’ lead the nominations list in the ‘OTT Segment’. Besides these four web series, ‘Dhootha’, ‘Heeramandi’ and ‘The Railway Men’ are also part of the best OTT show nominations list.

Arjun Mathur (‘Made in Heaven 2’), Babil Khan (‘The Railway Men’), Gulshan Devaiah (‘Guns and Gulaabs’), Jitendra Kumar (‘Panchayat S3’), Naveen Chandra (‘Inspector Rishi’), R Madhavan (‘The Railway Men’), Roshan Mathew (‘Poacher’) and Suvinder Vicky (‘Kohrra’) will compete for the ‘Best Actor OTT’ trophy.

In the ‘Best Actress OTT Segment’, the contenders are Harleen Sethi (‘Kohrra’), Karishma Tanna (‘Scoop’), Neena Gupta (‘Panchayat S3’), Nimisha Sajayan (‘Poacher’), Parvathy Thiruvothu (‘Dhootha’) and a few others.