Indian short film “An Old Dog’s Diary”, directed by Shai Heredia and Shumona Goel, has won the best short film award at the 2015 London Film Festival (LFF). The 11-minute-long film assembles, in puzzle-piece evocations, a portrait of Indian avant-garde painter Francis Newton Souza, revealing the cultural conditions for his work and its eventual eventual institutionalisation. The film was earlier showcased in the Wavelengths category at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Meanwhile, Greek director Athina Rachel Tsangari’s comedy Chevalier won best film at the London Film Festival, while Robert Eggers’ The Witch took the first feature prize, known as the Sutherland Award. The awards ceremony was hosted by musician Jarvis Cocker, and guests included Kathleen Kennedy, Martin Freeman and Ian McKellen among others.

Did You Know?

• LFF was founded in 1957 and is an annual film festival held at London to show the best of the year’s world cinema to a British audience.
• The LFF showcases the best work of world cinema that champions originality, creativity, vision and imagination.
• It is organised by British Film Institute and is United Kingdom’s largest public film event.
• It screens more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts films from almost 50 countries.