‘FINAL SOLUTION’ WINS 2 AWARDS AT BERLIN FESTIVAL: A scene from director Rakesh Sharma’s ‘Final Solution,’ a documentary film which won the Wolfgang Staudte Award and the Special Jury Award at the 54th Berlin Film Festival, for its portrayal of the Gujarat riots in 2002. ‘Final Solution’ is the first Indian film to win the Wolfgang Staudte Award. The 140-minute-long feature was shot following riots that rocked Gujarat after a train carrying volunteers of a Hindu group was set on fire in February 2002. (File photo)

‘KAL HO NA HO’ WINS PRIX DU PUBLIC AWARD AT VALENCIENNE FESTIVAL: ‘Kal Ho Na Ho,’ directed by Nikhil Advani and produced by Karan Johar, won the prestigious Prix Du Public award at the Valencienne Film Festival in France. ‘KHNH’ was chosen as the best out of the 12 entries that were screened to an audience of about 1,500 people. “They had earlier invited ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.’ This year, ‘Kal Ho Na Ho’ was in the competitive section. It competed with well-acclaimed films like the ‘Osama’ from Afghanistan and the ‘Hypnotic’ from Australia. It won the public award,” Johar told Indo-Asian News Service. (File photo)

‘JHANKAAR BEATS’ WINS AWARD AT HOUSTON FESTIVAL: A scene from the film. ‘Jhankaar Beats’ won the ‘Special Jury’ Award for ‘Best Film’ at the Houston International Film Festival, also known as Worldfest Houston. The award for ‘Jhankaar Beats’ came after the Media Studies Course at the coveted Massachusetts Institute of Technology decided to use the film as a case study for students in one of the semesters in 2004-05. (File photo)

KHER WINS AWARD: Kirron Kher, left, and Shilpa Shukla in director Sabiha Sumar’s ‘Khamosh Pani.’ The Karachi Film Festival awarded Kher for her performance as a middle-aged woman caught between the forces of fundamentalism on either side of the India-Pakistan border in ‘Khamosh Pani.’ (File photo)

‘BRIDE AND PREJUDICE’ TOPS BRITISH CHARTS: Director Gurinder Chadha’s ‘Bride and Prejudice’ topped the British and Ireland box office charts in the first week of its run at theaters. The Bollywood-inspired adaptation of the Jane Austen classic ‘Pride and Prejudice’ took £1.67 million on its first weekend, knocking off romantic comedy ‘Wimbledon’ from the top spot to the third place. Ticket holders in cinema halls across Britain for ‘Bride and Prejudice’ included British Asian and mainstream English cinemagoers, who had earlier applauded Chadha’s ‘Bend it Like Beckham.’(File photo)

HUMAN RIGHTS AWARD FOR ‘BORN INTO BROTHELS’: Zana Briski and Ross Kaufman, makers of ‘Born Into Brothels,’ a documentary about the children of Sonagachi, the red light district of Kolkata, were named the winners of the 2004 Nestor Almendros Prize “for courage in filmmaking” by Human Rights Watch International Film Festival. The 85-minute video in Bengali and English, which also won the Documentary Audience Award at Sundance Film Festival 2004, chronicled the amazing transformation of the children in the red light district. (File photo)

MADHUR JAFFREY CONFERRED COMMANDER OF THE ORDER OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE: Britain’s Ambassador to the United States, David Manning, presented the badge of Commander of the Order of British Empire (CBE) to Madhur Jaffrey, the award-winning actress and leading international authority on Indian cooking, at an investiture ceremony at the British Embassy in Washington on Nov. 5. Jaffrey, whose most recent stage appearance on the New York stage was in the A.R. Rahman musical ‘Bombay Dreams,’ was named an honorary CBE in the Queen’s List in June. “Described as ‘one of the great actresses of her generation,’ she is best known in the United States for her film work with Merchant Ivory Productions. Her performance in the company’s ‘Shakespearewallah’ was her first in feature film and earned her the Silver Bear as ‘Best Actress’ at the International Berlin Film Festival. (File photo)