'Gafla' wins top award at Cyprus film fest

Mumbai, Oct 30 (IANS) Director Sameer Hanchate's debut movie 'Gafla', based on 1990's stock market scam engineered by Harshad Mehta, has been awarded the Golden Aphrodite Medallion in the best script category at the 3rd Cyprus International Film Festival.

In all, six movies had vied for the Golden Aphrodite Medallion for different categories at the six-day festival this year.

The other five movies were 'Where Souls Go' (Estonia), 'Koroido En Taxxie' (Greece), 'Soppho' (Ukraine), 'The Crossroad' (Canada) and 'Cennet' (Turkey).

The festival concluded Oct 25.

Written and produced by Hanchate, the movie starring Vinod Sharawat, Shruti Ulfat and Purva Parag, was released in 2006. It didn't get an encouraging response at the box office, but, in 2007, it had won Hanchate the V. Shantaram Award for best debut director.

'Gafla' was also on the official selection list of the 50th London International Film Festival and was hailed as one of the top 10 movies of the festival. It was also screened in the Indian Panorama section of the 38th International Film Festival of India in 2007.