Rang De Basanti sweeps 8 awards at Malaysian Film fest

Newcomer director Rakeysh Mehra and his film about idealism swept eight awards, while Bollywood heartthrob Hrithik Roshan won the Best Actor for his role as a superhero at the Global Indian Film Awards.

The five-hour Oscar-style event, which ended early Sunday, was marred by several goofs ups including missed cues by program hosts, flat jokes, awkward pauses and long-winded speeches. The heavy ball on top of the award statuette came unstuck and fell off several times.

Besides winning the Best Director award for Mehra, ``Rang De Basanti'' also won for best actress in a supporting role, music, lyrics, editing, background score, art direction and screenplay.

``Wow what a year,'' said Mehra, hailing the good films produced in 2006 by Bollywood, as the Mumbai-based Indian film industry is known. It produces more than 800 movies a year, three times that of Hollywood.

``Rang De Basanti,'' Mehra's second directorial venture, is a twin narrative juxtaposing a group of youngsters in the present day with Indian revolutionaries fighting for independence from British colonial rule in the early 1900s.

The common thread in their stories is the fight against oppression - British rule then and corruption now - and standing up for one's beliefs.