Indian movie Court won best debut award at Venice Film Festival

Court, an Indian movie written and directed by Indian writer Chaitanya Tamhane, on 7 September 2014 won the Lion of the Future – Luigi De Laurentiis award for a Debut Feature at the 71st Venice Film Festival. The film that is a multilingual courtroom drama, won the award for its striking narrative style.

With this award, the film won a monetary prize of 100000 US dollars that was donated by Filmauro di Aurelio e Luigi De Laurentiis. This amount should be divided between director and producer.

Court was also was awarded with the Orizzonti award for best film.

Apart from this several other films also won other awards and they were  
• Golden Lion for Best Film: A Pigeon sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (en duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron) by Roy Andersson
• Silver Lion for Best Director: Andrej Koncalovskij for the film the Postman’s White Nights (Belye Nochi Pochtalona Alekseya Tryapitsyna)
• Grand Jury Prize: The Look of Silence by Joshua Oppenheimer
• Coppa Volpi for Best Actor: Adam Driver in the film Hungry Hearts by Saverio Costanzo
• Coppa Volpi for Best Actress: Alba Rohrwacher in the film Hungry Hearts by Saverio Costanzo (Italy)
• Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Young Actor or Actress: Romain Paul in the film Le Dernier Coup De Marteau by Alix Delaporte
• Award for Best Screenplay: Rakhshan Banietemad and Farid Mostafavi for the film Ghesseha (Tales) by Rakhshan Banietemad
• Special Jury Prize: Sivas by Kaan Mujdeci

List of some Orizzonti Awards
• The Orizzonti Award for Best Director: Naji Abu Nowar for Theeb
• The Special Orizzonti Jury Prize: Belluscone, Una Storia Siciliana by Franco Maresco
• The Special Orizzonti Award for Best Actor or Actress: Emir Hadžihafizbegovic in the film Takva Su Pravila (These are the Rules) by Ognjen Svilicic
• The Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film: Maryam by Sidi Saleh (Indonesia)
• The Venice Short Film Nomination for the European Film Awards 2014: Pat – Lehem (Daily Bread) by Idan Hubel

Other Indian film at the 71st Venice Film Festival was Labour of Love by Aditya Vikram Sengupta that returned back without any award. On the other hand, in 2013 Venice Film Festival, Kush of Shubhashish Bhutiani won the best short.

President Pranab Mukherjee presented Saakshar Bharat Awards 2014

President Pranab Mukherjee on 8 September 2014 presented the Saakshar Bharat Awards 2014 at International Literacy Day Celebrations. The function was organized by Union Ministry of Human Resource Development at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi.

He gave away 11 Saakshar Bharat Awards 2014 to State, Districts, Blocks, Gram Panchayats, State Resource Centre (SRC) and Jan Shikshan Sansthan (JSS) for their best performance in the field of adult education.

One of the recipient of Saakshar Bharat National Award 2014 was G.S.R. K.R. Vijaykumar, the District collector of Prakasam District, Andhra Pradesh. He received the award for turning 4.75 lakh non literates into literates within nine months in the total literacy programme.

Saakshar Bharat Awards 2014 were given in following categories:
1. State- State Literacy Mission Authorities (SLMAs)
2. District- Zilla Lok Shiksha Samitis (ZLSSs)
3. Gram Panchayat- Gram Lok Shiksha Samitis (GLSSs)
4. Resource Support Organisations like University Dept. of Adult & Continuing Education, SRCs,
JSSs, NGOs and other organisations.

Saakshar Bharat Awards
Saakshar Bharat Awards were instituted by the National Literacy Mission Authority, Government of India to encourage institutions working in the field of literacy and skill development. The awards are presented on the occasion of International Literacy Day every year on 8 September 2014.

About Saakshar Bharat
Saakshar Bharat is a centrally sponsored scheme of Department of School Education and Literacy (DSEL) and Union Ministry of Human Resource Development.  It was launched on 8 September 2009.

Achievements under Saakshar Bharat are:
• Programme was rolled out in rural areas of 383 Low Female Literacy Districts in 25 States and one
Union Territory since 2009.
• 28.39 million learners (including 20.38 million females) successfully passed the basic literacy
assessments conducted from 2010 by National Institute for Open Schooling upto March 2014.
• Certified learners also include 6.66 million Scheduled Castes (23%), 3.58 million Scheduled Tribes
(12.6%) and 2.33 million Minorities (8.2%).