IIFA WINNERS

IT MAY have lost the Best Film honour to Bajrangi Bhaijaan, but the big winner at the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards in Madrid was Bajirao Mastani.

The glitzy ceremony in the Spanish capital saw the historical epic win awards for Best Actor (Ranveer Singh), Best Supporting Actress (Priyanka Chopra) and Best Director (Sanjay Leela Bhansali).

The unstoppable big budget romance also won awards for Best Action, Best Special Effects, Best Choreography, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Production Design, Best Song Engineer, Best Sound Design and Best Background Score.

Despite winning Best Film, last year’s biggest grossing Bollywood release Bajrangi Bhaijaan had a night to forget with only one further honour for Best Screenplay.

Comedy drama Piku saw Deepika Padukone win Best Actress along with awards for Best Story and Best Dialogue. Meanwhile, Anil Kapoor won Best Supporting Actor for Dil Dhadakne Do.

Vicky Kaushal won Best Male Debut for Masaan and Bhumi Pednekar won a well deserved Best Female Debut for sleeper hit Dum Laga Ke Haisha.

Darshan Kumar was a surprise winner of Best Performance In A Negative Role for NH10 and Deepak Dobriyal won Best Performance In A Comic Role for hit film Tanu Weds Manu Returns. Talvar won Best Editing, Tanu Weds Manu Returns also won Best Make-up and Best Sound Mixing went to Badlapur.

Perhaps most surprising were the musical awards. Mega-flop film Roy won Best Music Direction and despite having a forgettable sound- track Dum Laga Ke Haisha won awards for Best Lyrics, Best Male Playback Singer (Papon) and Best Female Singer (Monali Thakur).

The Shahid Kapoor and Farhan Akhtar-hosted event brought plenty of jokes, colourful costumes and live performances, including a tribute to Michael Jackson by Tiger Shroff. Priyanka Chopra shone, but Salman Khan and Hrithik Roshan didn’t quite live up to their billing.

Overall, there was a lack of stars and the ceremony didn’t live up to past ones. Judge for yourself when IIFA shows on TV channel Colors.

The stunning performance of Diljit Dosanjh in Udta Punjab has resulted in even more big-name filmmakers eager to sign him. According to reports, one those is Karan Johar.

Actress Kangana Ranaut confessed that she suffers from ophiophobia, which is a deep fear of snakes.

The rapidly growing list of Western projects Anil Kapoor wants to remake now includes Dutch film Everybody’s Famous (2000).

The trend of Bollywood actors voicing characters for Hindi dubbed versions of Hollywood films will continue with Arjun Kapoor voicing a character in upcoming animated film Ice Age: Collision Course.