Dahini - The Witch: JD Chakravarthy, Tannishtha Chatterjee bag top honours at Eko International Film Festival, Nigeria

Tannishtha Chatterjee (who was part of Parched, Angry Indian Goddesses, UnIndian) and Satya, Gulabi fame actor JD Chakravarthy bagged the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actor awards at Eko International Film Festival, Nigeria for their Hindi film titled Dahini - The Witch, helmed by globally acclaimed director Rajesh Touchriver. The film is produced by social activist, the filmmaker’s better half Sunitha Krishnan.

This is the first-ever international award win for JD Chakravarthy, who made a mark with films like Anaganaga Oka Roju, Bombai Priyudu and Egire Pavurama. He was cast as Pratap Babu, an activist committed to fighting against witch-hunting. Chakravarthy has had an eventful career as an actor with over 80 films in Telugu, Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada and Hindi. This award win had him sharing the stage with celebrated performers like Wole Ojo and Shaffy Bello.

Chakravarthy called the award-win a humbling experience as an actor. “That I won an award in a festival that celebrates the best talents in world cinema is a proud moment for me and I’ll be grateful to my director Rajesh Touchriver for this opportunity and for bringing the best out of me,” he added. Dahini - The Witch is a social thriller revolving around witch-hunting which has won over 13 international awards.

Dahini aims to shed light on the crude reality of witch-hunting which is practised in more than 17 states in India, addressing several key issues around human rights concern that affects many countries. The gender-based violence, reportedly, is used to slaughter women who do not adhere to gender norms or have issues while settling interpersonal disputes.

Filmed in the Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, where witch-hunting is rampant, the film also stars Ashique Hussain, Badrul Islam, Angana Roy, Riju Bajaj, Jagannath Seth, Sruthy Jayan and Dilip Das. Noushad Shereef cranked the camera for the film whose crew comprises late production designer Sunil Babu, sound designer Ajith Abraham George, musician George Joseph and editor Sasi Kumar too. The thriller is produced under Ramleela Productions and SunTouch Productions.