Vijay’s Mersal Wins Best Foreign Language Film at the 4th Annual National Film Awards, UK

Actor Vijay’s Mersal, which was directed by Atlee and which emerged a blockbuster despite running into trouble for featuring sequences against Digital India and demonetisation, has done the country proud by winning the award for the Best Foreign Language Film at the Fourth Annual National Film Awards in the United Kingdom.

Atlee’s film, which featured Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kajal Aggarwal and Nithya Menon in the lead, defeated eight other films from across the globe, including Happy End (France), Loveless (Russia), In the Fade (Germany/France), The Square (Sweden/Germany/France), A Fantastic Woman (Chile) and Vaya(South Africa), to win the top honour.

The National Film Awards UK is an annual awards ceremony celebrating the achievements of established and independent filmmakers, actors, actresses, casting directors, production companies and crew who make up the motion picture industry. All nominations and voting for the NFA are submitted and voted for by movie fans.

Interestingly, this year, a record 2.4 million film fans voted across 18 categories to make up the official shortlist.

It may be recalled that the ruling Bharathiya Janata Party had taken strong exception to some of the sequences in the film and had demanded that the sequences be removed. Despite all the opposition, the film emerged a winner at the box office, raking in the collections.