MOSCOW (The Thursday Times) — Pakistani actress Dananeer Mobeen has won the best actress award at the Diamond Butterfly, the Open Eurasian Film Awards in Moscow, for her role in the Karachi football drama Mera Lyari.
The award was presented to her on stage by Sergei Garmash, a People’s Artist of Russia. Mobeen said she had not expected so valuable a prize and that the film mattered to its whole crew, not only to her.
The awards, in their second year, come with diamonds rather than cash. Organisers said each category winner receives a five-carat stone valued at about $250,000, alongside a butterfly statuette designed by the artist Yuri Kuper. The best film prize, a 10-carat diamond valued at $1 million, went to the Russian film August.
Two Pakistani films in the running
Forty-one films from 19 countries, including Pakistan, India, Iran, China, Turkey, and Kazakhstan, competed this year. Mera Lyari and Welcome to Punjab were the two Pakistani entries.
Abu Aleeha, who wrote and directed Mera Lyari, called the award “the result of a complete team effort” in a post on social media. “When you truly know how to work, Allah grants you honour even if He calls you across seven seas,” he wrote, singling out the film’s executive producer, Ayesha Omar, and its producer, Waqas Hassan Rizvi.
Mera Lyari follows a group of young women footballers from Lyari, one of Karachi’s oldest neighbourhoods. Mobeen stars alongside Ayesha Omar and Trinette Lucas. The film premiered at the UK Asian Film Festival in London before opening in Pakistani cinemas in May.
Other winners
Kazakhstan’s Zhasulan Kopbergen won best actor for Restart, and the veteran Russian actress Alisa Freindlich received a special prize for her contribution to cinema.
It is the second year running that a Pakistani actress has been honoured at the awards. At the first ceremony last year, Sonya Hussyn won best supporting actress for Deemak.
