Bay Area South Asian Film Festival 2018 (San Francisco) Award Winners!

The first edition of the Bay Area South Asian Film Festival (BASAFF) ended on 23 September at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts in California and handed out awards in six categories. The night's big winner was director Kireet Khurana's T For Taj Mahal which won the Best Feature Film award. It closed the festival on the same day. Aditya Kelgaonkar's short film Sound Proof, starring Soha Ali Khan and Vinay Pathak, picked up the honours for best short film.

The best director awards for feature and short films were handed out to Sriram Dalton and Siddharth Chauhan, respectively. Dalton's feature film Spring Thunder had its world premiere at the Silicon Valley festival and showcased the fight in rural India between sustainability and development against the backdrop of uranium mining. While Chauhan's short film, set in Himachal Pradesh, unveils the ancient technique of Pashi, a guide on how to trap birds.

Actor Barun Sobti's turn as a sports agent in Mitali Ghoshal's 22 Yards won him the Best Actor Award and Golshifteh Farahani's performance as the scorpion singer Nooran in Anup Singh's The Song of Scorpions opposite Irrfan Khan was awarded the Best Actress.

Here's the full list of awards below:

Best Feature Film - T For Taj Mahal
Best Short Film - Sound Proof
Best Director (feature) - Sriram Dalton, Spring Thunder
Best Director (short) - Siddharth Chauhan, Pashi
Best Actor (feature) - Barun Sobti, 22 Yards
Best Actress (feature) - Golshifteh Farahani, The Song of Scorpions

The inaugural festival was held in Mountain View and Palo Alto, California from 21 to 23 September.