Independent Tamil film Parallel Lines that premiered at Canada’s prestigious south Asian film festival, the Mosaic International South Asian Film Festival (MISAFF) has won the Jury prize. The film, written, directed, edited, and produced by Kiran R, who had assisted filmmaker Mani Ratnam in Kaatru Veliyidai, was shot in just 25 days before the pandemic-induced lockdown.

Among honorary Jury mentions for the film are Best Ensemble Performance for actors Vatsan M Natarajan and Masanth Natarajan; Best Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Sound Design for Kiran. Theatre artists Vatsan M Natarajan and Masanth Natarajan, from the Koothu-P-Pattarai theatre group are the lead actors of this film.

With a very small film crew of seven members, the team went about filming Parallel Lines in and around Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, using the guerrilla filmmaking technique. Sundar Ram Krishnan has done the cinematography for Parallel Lines and its background score has been composed by Santhan Anebajagane.

Parallel Lines is the story of two men who befriend each other on Facebook, meeting in real life for the first time. They share two things in common — their name and their opinion towards injustice in crimes against women — and the film is about the events that transpire when they first meet.

The eighth edition of MISAFF that was held online this year screened films in Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Bengali, Punjabi. Pashto, Spanish, Marathi, Darri, Persian - all with English subtitles.

Award winning Pakistani film Zindagi Tamasha, directed by Sarmad Khoosat, won Best International Feature. The film also won the Sabeen Mahmud Award. Best Director award was given to Arun Karthik, director of the acclaimed Nasir. Best International Short went to Oru Single Room by Vishnu Dev. Kaveh Nabatian’s Sin La Habana is another film that won multiple awards at the festival. The festival began on December 4, Thursday and concluded on December 12, Saturday.