SS Rajamouli's 'RRR' honoured by New York Film Critics Circle Awards

New Delhi: SS Rajamouli, the best director winner at the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC) Awards for ‘RRR’, thanked the organisation for appreciating his ‘small film from the south of India’.

The filmmaker was named the recipient of the honour earlier last month and received the trophy in person on January 4 at a gala held at TAO Downtown Restaurant in New York.

A pre-Independence fictional story, ‘RRR’ is a fictionalised story around two real-life Indian revolutionaries in the 1920s, Alluri Sitarama Raju and Komaram Bheem, played by Ram Charan and Jr NTR, respectively.

“Receiving this award from you is a great honour. I really appreciate it. You have honoured my whole cast and crew and have made a lot of people take notice of a small film from the south of India. Many people don’t know that such a field exists, but because of this, I am sure many people will look at it,” Rajamouli said in his acceptance speech, the videos of which were shared by the official ‘Twitter’ handle of ‘RRR’.

Rajamouli, in his speech, said he was overwhelmed with the love and appreciation the film has received. Recalling his experience of watching James Cameron’s ‘Terminator 2: Judgement Day’ in a cinema hall, the director said he could see the same ‘joy’ on the faces of the audiences while watching ‘RRR’.

“The look on the audience’s faces was pure joy and awe. We could look at their faces and know what they were thinking, like ‘What in the hell did we just witness!’ This is exactly what I want from my audience - pure joy of watching the film in the theatre,” he added.

The filmmaker, who is also vying for a Critics Choice Award in the best director category, said he is grateful to the cast and crew of ‘RRR’ for helping him ‘achieve whatever successes I have had’.