The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne has released its list of nominations for its annual award ceremony. Sanjay Leela Bhansali directed ‘Gangubai Kathiwadi’ and the South Film- Jai Bhim have topped the list.

The SLB directorial is nominated in three categories, including Best Film, Best Actress and Best Director.

Films such as ‘Gangubai Kathiawadi’, ‘Badhaai Do’, ‘Jai Bhim’, ’83’ and ‘Minnal Murali’ and many others have been nominated in the Best Film category. Indie film nominations have acclaimed films including ‘Pedro’, ‘Once Upon a Time in Calcutta’, ‘Fair Folk’ amongst others, while ‘Urf’, ‘Ayena’, ‘Ladies Only’ are some of the Best Docu nominees.

Apart from Alia, Deepika Padukone and Vidya Balan will also be vying for the award of Best Actress for their respective films ‘Gehraiyaan’ and ‘Jalsa’. For the Best Actor category, Ranveer Singh (83), Abhishekh Bachchan (Dasvi) and Vicky Kaushal (Sardar Udham) among others are nominated. 

The IIFMs 13th edition is making a physical comeback after being entirely virtual for two years. This year the festival starts on 12-20 August and will also have virtual programming between 13-30 August for Australian audiences. This year there are over 100 films across 23 languages being screened at the festival. The jury includes global award-winning film editor Jill Bilcock, one of Australia’s most renowned actors, Vince Colosimo, multi-award-winning director Geoffrey Wright, and multi-award-winning filmmaker Nadia Tass.