Madhuri Dixit honoured with 'Special Recognition for Contribution to Bharatiya Cinema' award at IFFI

Digital Desk: Bollywood diva Madhuri Dixit won the "Special Recognition for Contribution to Bharatiya Cinema" award at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI). Anurag Thakur, Union Minister of Sports, praised Dixit for her "unparalleled talent".

He took to X and wrote, "An icon across the ages, @MadhuriDixit has graced our screens with unparalleled talent for four incredible decades. From the effervescent Nisha to the captivating Chandramukhi, the majestic Begum Para to the indomitable Rajjo, her versatility knows no bounds. Today, we are filled with admiration as we present the 'Special Recognition for Contribution to Bharatiya Cinema' Award to the talented, charismatic actress who has redefined excellence in cinema, at the 54th International Film Festival of India. A celebration of an extraordinary journey, a tribute to an everlasting legacy!"

In Goa, the 54th edition of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) is back. On November 20, a star-studded ceremony at the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Indoor Stadium marked the beginning of the nine-day festival.

Vijay Sethupathi, Sara Ali Khan, Pankaj Tripathi, Sunny Deol, Karan Johar, Shantanu Moitra, Shreya Ghoshal, and Sukhwinder Singh are among the other guests on the guest list for the event.

A press release from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting states that the thriller Catching Dust, directed by the acclaimed British director Stuart Gatt, will start the gala. The 54th IFFI's mid-fest feature, About Dry Grasses, directed by French director Nuri Bilge Ceylan, will be followed by Robert Kolodny's The Featherweight as the film's finale.

The head of the festival's five-person jury for best web series (OTT) will be filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani. The jury panel for the first category includes directors Utpal Borpujari and Krishna DK in addition to Divya Dutta and Prosenjit Chatterjee.

For the first-ever best online series award, a total of 32 entries from 15 OTT platforms in 10 languages have been chosen. Speaking about the recently established OTT awards, Anurag Thakur stated that thousands of people are employed by original content produced in India, which has seen growth in the country's OTT industry since the COVID-19 outbreak. The Ministry created this award to recognize exceptional content creators on OTT platforms in response to the changing industry, which is growing at a rate of 28% per year.