Mumbai, 21 March, 2018: News18 REEL Movie Awards, a News18.com marquee property with Reliance Digital as the presenting sponsor, celebrated new age cinema like never before in presence of renowned artists, film-makers and producers at the Taj Lands End in Mumbai, yesterday. Personalities such as Rajkummar Rao, Dia Mirza, Ratna Pathak Shah, Sonali Kulkarni and Richa Chadda among others graced the event with their presence. Jury members Nikhil Advani, Sudhir Mishra and Sujoy Ghosh looked on while the new-age cinema artists received their well-deserved awards.

The awards opened with Prasoon Joshi, ad-man and CBFC Chairman being welcomed on the dais for a riveting conversation reflecting upon his challenges in his current role. The evening then moved towards recognizing excellence in new age cinema and honouring the personalities who gave their best in 2017. Amit V Masurkar took home the first News18 REEL Movie Awards for Best Director for Newton, Irrfan Khan was recognised for his work in the movie Hindi Medium under the Best Actor (Male) category, while a surprised Ratna Pathak Shah accepted the Best Actor (Female) award for her role in Lipstick Under My Burkha.

On accepting the award, Ratna shared, “I am surprised that a 60-year old artist was picked for the award since it was quite the chance that the jury took and I am happy that they did.” The actor dedicated her award to the team of Lipstick Under My Burkha.

The jury presented an award for the Breakthrough Actor to none-other-than Rajkummar Rao. The elated star said, “2017 was a great year for cinema and I hope it continues. I am so happy that the dream I had seen as a young boy sitting in Gurgaon has come true. I want to thank the audience for appreciating such cinema and we will continue to keep bringing excellent content for them.”  

Mukti Bhawan won the first News18 REEL Movie Awards for Best Film and director Shubhashish Bhutiani, along with his team accepted the awards and shared, “I stayed in a room with my father in preparation for the film, pretty much taking a journey like the protagonist in a film, in order to make this movie happen. Winning the award is truly an honour and a privilege.”

Meher Vij was awarded the Best Supporting Actor (Female) for the movie Secret Superstar, while Pankaj Tripathi won the award for Newton in the Best Supporting Actor (Male) category.

The awards concluded with a riveting panel discussion on digital content creation, moderated by Network18 Digital CEO Manish Maheshwari, with Sujoy Ghosh, Saurabh Shukla, Sudhir Mishra, Richa Chadha and Dhawal Gusain taking the dais as panelists. The event was live-streamed on Jio TV.