OTTplay Awards 2025: Nikkhil Advani and Pradeep Maddali share the Best Director Award (Web Series) for Freedom at Midnight and Vikkatakavi respectively

Nikkhil Advani is one of the finest talents in Indian cinema. After making his debut with Kal Ho Na Ho, Nikkhil has made films and series in different genres to date. But he stunned one and all with his work in the Sony Liv series Freedom at Midnight. His directorial brilliance has won him the Best Director (Web Series) Award at the third edition of the OTTplay Awards 2025, held in Mumbai on March 22.

Nikkhil Advani and Pradeep Maddali share the Best Director Award

Freedom at Midnight is adapted from the book of the same name and has been created and directed by Nikkhil Advani. The series delves into the 1947 partition of India and has some terrific performances.

Nikkhil Advani, who was presented the award by Anu Malik at the show that was hosted by Aparshakti Khurana and Kubra Sait, said, “Thank you Anu ji. You have been a great inspiration through the songs you composed over the years. Thank you HT OTTplay. It's a huge award," he said, adding, "Freedom At Midnight is something I wanted to do since 25 years and it took 4 years to make. Thank you so much.”

On the other hand, the award is shared by yet another exciting new talent from south India, Pradeep Maddali. His work for the super hit Telugu series has won him the Best Director(Web Series) Award at the third edition of the OTTplay Awards 2025, held in Mumbai on March 22.

Pradeep Maddali said, “It's a really great honour to be here. I really want to thank OTTplay, my parents and the team. This is for all of us. This has definitely raised more responsibility on me.”

Pradeep Maddali has transitioned from engineering and IT to emerge as a promising young director in Telugu cinema. After making an OTT mystery 47 Days, he then made the soulful spiritual series Sarvam Shakthi Mayam. With Vikkatakavi, he has gone to new heights.

While Freedom at Mighnight is streaming on Sony Liv, Vikkatakavi is available on Zee5 and OTTplay Premium.

OTTplay Awards 2025 also saw the who’s who of Indian OTT space turn up, celebrating the theme - “One Nation, One Award”. The Roshans, Kajol and Manoj Bajpayee were also honoured at the award function, which had celebs from film industries including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada.

OTTplay Awards 2025 is co-presented by Real Juice and Kuhl and powered by Stock Gro. The marquee event, held in partnership with HT City, has Flipkart Spoyl as the exclusive style partner, D Pauls as the travel partner, Amante as the premium lingerie partner, Propshop as the real estate partner, Aussie Lamb and Krishinet Fiber as the special partners, UDigital as the ISP and iPTV partner and Hyperlink as the event partner.