Produced by Manish Mundra and directed by Amit V Masurkar, Newton has won the Jury Prize for the Best Film at the 41st Hong Kong Film Festival 2017. The film had its Asia Premiere at the festival where it was screened in the Young Cinema Competition category.
The jury awarded the film “For the intelligent and human presentation of a political situation in a country. The film balances the humour, disillusion and – against all odds – a steadfast belief in the meaning of democracy”
Thrilled with the audience and jury response to his film, Director Amit V Masurkar says, “We are delighted to win the Jury Prize at the 41st Hong Kong International Film Festival! It’s one of the oldest and most prestigious film festivals in Asia and will help us get an audience in that part of the world”. Newton is Amit V Masurkar’s second film after the sleeper hit, Sulemani Keeda in 2014.
Starring Rajkummar Rao in the titular role, Newton features a stellar cast which includes Anjali Patil, Pankaj Tripathi and Raghubir Yadav. Producer Mundra, also the founder of Drishyam Films is elated with the film’s international success too. “With each milestone, we come closer to the film’s India release this summer — can’t wait to present Newton to our Indian audiences!”
The film will be making its North American premiere at the 15th Tribeca Film Festival 2017 in the International Narrative Competition section. The festival will run its course from 19-30 April in New York.
Synopsis
Newton is a razor sharp political black comedy that takes place on an election day in Central India. Rajkummar Rao (Aligarh and Shahid) plays Newton, a rookie clerk on election duty in a conflict-ridden jungle of Chhattisgarh, who tries his best to conduct free and fair voting despite the apathy of security forces and the looming fear of an attack by Maoist rebels.
About Drishyam Films
Drishyam Films aims to build a platform for unique voices of Indian independent cinema and create global content with rich Indian flavours. Their filmmaking journey started with the award-winning film Ankhon Dekhi directed by Rajat Kapoor. Its success was followed by Umrika directed by Prashant Nair which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2015 and bagged the Audience Choice Award. Their other films include Dhanak directed by Nagesh Kukunoor that won the Grand Jury prize at Berlinale 2015, Neeraj Ghaywan‘s National Award winning Masaan and Anu Menon’s Waiting. Their upcoming productions include Atanu Mukerjee’s Rukh starring Manoj Bajpayee and Nila Madhab Panda’s Kadvi Hawa starring Sanjay Mishra.
About Hong Kong International Film Festival
The Hong Kong International Film Festival is one of the oldest international Film Festival and a pioneer in introducing Hong Kong, Chinese and Asian Cinema and filmmakers to the world. The 41st Hong Kong International Film Festival (HKIFF41) is being held from 11 to 25th April 2017. Since past seven years, screening over 250 titles from more than 55 countries in over 11 major cultural venues across the territory every year, HKIFF is one of the largest cultural events in Hong Kong.
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