NEW DELHI: The Turkish film 'Istanbul My love' won the best film and best director award for Seckin Yasar at the 4th India International Women Film Festival which concluded here last night.

The film 'Coffee House' by Gurbir Singh Grewal walked away with two awards: the best film in the 'Male Voice' category, and the best actress Sakshi Tanwar.

'Good Night' by Geetika Narang received the award for the best short feature, thus receiving a second award this month as it had won the Silver Lamp Tree Award of the Short Film Center of the International Film Festival of India in Panaji earlier this month.

The award for the best documentary went jointly to the American film 'No! The Rape Documentary' by Aishah Shahidah Simons, and the Indian 'Caravan' by Shazia Khan, while 'Kashmakash' by Pragya Pallavi of India came in for special mention.

France was the focus country and a total of around 80 feature and short films from over 40 countries were screened in the Festival which opened with the film 'Istanbul My Love' on 14 December.

The eight-day festival was aimed at encouraging women directors and on the theme "Women Behind the Camera", relating to women empowerment, where women are being showcased not just as objects of visual pleasure but behind the camera.

Tributes were paid to seven Indian women filmmakers: Arundhati Devi, Manju Dey, Sai Paranjpye, Aparna Sen, Kalpana Lajmi, Vijaya Mehta and Prema Karanth.

The programme this year included Competition –World Cinema (Feature), Competition (Documentary), Indian Panorama, Retrospective, Kinder Films, Joint Hands, Focus Institute, Male Voice, and Short Films (Out of Competition).