Director Mani Ratnam was honoured with 'Jaeger-Le Coultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award' at the 67th Venice Film Festival on Monday. Director and Jury member Gabriele Salvatores presented the award to Mani Ratnam. The Venice Film Festival (Italian Mostra Internazionale d’Arte Cinematografica) is the oldest film festival in the world. The festival is being held from September 1 to 11 this year.
With the award Mani Ratnam joins Sylvester Stallone, Agnes Varda, Abbas Kiarostami, and Takeshi Kitano who have “left a mark” on contemporary cinema. After the award ceremony, the festival premiere of 'Raavanan' was screened in the Sala Grande.
Announcing this at Cannes in May this year Venice Film Festival director Marco Muller had said: "Mani Ratnam is one of the greatest innovators in contemporary Indian cinema. He helped introduce the auteur concept to contemporary Bollywood. We are very proud to honour the work of the great Indian director Mani Ratnam."
Mani Ratnam was accompanied by Suhasini Mani Ratnam, and Vikram. The other leading stars of 'Raavan', Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek who were also to attend the festival had to stay back for personal reasons.