'Embrace of the Serpent' wins Golden Peacock award at 46th IFFI

South American filmmaker Ciro Guerra's film "Embrace of the Serpent" won the prestigious Golden Peacock award at the 46th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) that concluded here on Monday.

Indian filmmaker Kaushik Ganguly won the newly-instituted Unesco Fellini medal for his film "Cinemawala".

British filmmaker Peter Greenaway won the best director award for his film "Eisenstein in Guanajuato", while Julia Vargas' film "Sealed Cargo" won the Special Jury award.

The best actor male award was won by French actor Vincent Lindon for "Measure of a man", while five actresses -- Gunes Sensoy, Doga Dugusulo, Tukba Sungurugulu, Eltitz Kan, and Liada Akdogan, who acted in the Turkish film "Mustang" jointly won the best actor female award.

Goran Radovanovic's Serbian film "Enclave" won the special mention award from the IFFI jury headed by renowned director Shekhar Kapoor also.

The IFFI closing ceremony came to an end with awarding of the lifetime achievent to Russian filmmaker Nikita Mikhailkov.

The 11-day festival began on November 20, with the opening film "The Man Who Knew Infinity" directed by Mathew Brown a film on the 1913 self-taught Indian mathematical genius Ramanajun and his friendship with G.H. Hardy who helped reveal the mathematics genius to the world.

Over 7,000 delegates from 38 countries, most from India, attended the festival, which closed with the screening of the Argentinian film "The Clan" (El Clan).

A total of 187 films from 89 countries, 26 of which are official Academy award entries, were screened at IFFI apart from the films which were part of the Indian Panorama section.