Tamil Nadu Timeline

CinemaMadras State (Congress era)

Sivaji Ganesan wins Best Actor at Afro-Asian Film Festival

· Cairo

Sivaji Ganesan wins Best Actor at Afro-Asian Film Festival
Manirvp666, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

For Veerapandiya Kattabomman, Sivaji Ganesan was named Best Actor at Cairo's Afro-Asian Film Festival, the first such win by an Indian actor.

In March 1960 the Afro-Asian Film Festival in Cairo gave its Best Actor award to Sivaji Ganesan for his role in Veerapandiya Kattabomman (1959). No Indian actor before him had won a best actor prize at any international film festival. Tamil cinema drew notice abroad as a result. Decades later, in 1997, Ganesan was honoured with the Dadasaheb Phalke Award.

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