KUALA LUMPUR: The heart-warming film 2 States, directed by Abhishek Verman, leads the nominations list for the coming International Indian Film Academy (IIFA) Awards, scheduled to be held at Stadium Putra Bukit Jalil from June 5 to June 7.
The romantic comedy starring Arjun Kapoor and Ali Bhatt received nine nods in various categories. Other films in the list are Vishal Bhardwaj’s hard-hitting Haider with eight nominations, Rajkumar Hirani’s inspiring film PK with six and the stirring Kangana Ranaut starrer Queen with five. Other noteworthy mentions this year are Imtiaz Ali’s Highway and Ek Villain.
Organiser Andre Timmins, Wizcraft International Entertainment Pvt. Ltd director said: “It is amazing how Indian cinema is growing strength by strength every year. It has been a spectacular year for Indian Cinema across genres of films and a multitude of talent on and off screen. Some of the biggest films are contending for awards this year and the nominations reflect the talent and achievements of our Indian Film Industry.”
Contenders for the Leading Role Male this year are Shahrukh Khan (Happy New Year), Aamir Khan (PK), Hrithik Roshan (Bang Bang, Arjun Kapoor (2 States), Shahid Kapoor (Haider) and Randeep Hooda (Highway). The Leading Role Female category sees Deepika Padukone (Happy New Year), Priyanka Chopra (Mary Kom), Rani Mukherji (Mardaani), Anushka Sharma (PK), Kangana Ranaut (Queen) and Alia Bhatt (2 States) vie for the award this year.
The Best Director category sees a host of worthy nominees including Vikas Bahl (Queen), Vishal Bhardwaj (Haider), Rajkumar Hirani (PK), Abhishek Varman (2 States) and Imtiaz Ali’s (Highway).
The International Indian Film Academy also recently announced the winners of the technical categories.
Haider walks away with six awards including Costume Designing (Dolly Ahluwalia). Other winners include Background Score (Vishal Bhardwaj), Sound Mixing (Debajit Changmai), Sound Design (Shajith Koyeri), Production Design (Subrata Chakraborty & Amit Ray) and Make-up (Preetisheel Singh & Clover Wootton).
Queen took home the award for Screenplay (Vikas Bahl, Chaitally Parmar, Parveez Shaikh) and Editing (Aburag Kashyap and Abhijit Kokate) while Kick received the awards for Choreography (Ahmed Khan) and Special Effects – Visual (Reupal Rawal). Ek Villian won for Song Recording (Eric Pillai) and PK won the honour for Dialogue (Abhijit Joshi & Rajkumar Hirani). 2 States won the award for Cinematography (Binod Pradhan) and Bang Bang took home the award for Action (Parvez Shaikh and Andy Armstrong)
Wizcraft International Entertainment Pvt. Ltd promotes the IIFA Weekend & Awards globally each year and travels to a new destination for the awards show, taking the film fraternity with it to unite and celebrate the best of Indian film and culture.