TORONTO: Blue Sapphire Entertainment launched the nominations and website for TISFA – the Toronto International South-Asian Film Awards on March 31.
TISFA is intended to be the the very first award show in Toronto that aims to promote and encourage film artists from an international playground of cinema. The award winners will be announced during a Press Club Meet in Cochin in June 2018.
Founder and CEO of Blue Sapphire Entertainment, Ajeesh Rajendran, inaugurated the TISFA with the launch of the official website along with colourful entertainment and dinner. Key sponsors and supporters of the TISFA 2018 Launch included Manoj Karatha (Mega Sponsor of TISFA), Prasad Nair (President – Mississauga Kerala Association), Prem Arasarathnam (Chairman – Tamil Entertainment Television), Raji Arasarathnam (Director – Tamilar Senthamarai), Viresh Mathur (Scarborough Business Associate Board Director), Vijay Sethumadhavan (CEO – Magnus Telemedia), Annie Koshy (GTA South Asian Media Network), Alex Alexander (Homelife), Sajeev Madhavan, Subha Thampi Pillai (Film Producer), Ravi Atchuthan (Director cum Cinematographer) and others.
The launch is the first step and has set in motion a platform for upcoming works of TISFA. Award nominations are based on online voting along with the final decision of a jury. As an initial step in this inaugural year of the award show, the voting categories include both Malayalam and Tamil movies released in 2017 whereas the nomination categories include Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi movies.
In subsequent years, the TISFA team is planning to include more regional language films from South Asia.
Movies released from Jan 2017 to Dec 2017 can be included in nominations this year. TISFA is also inviting short film entries from all of North America to be included in the selection categories. Further information about TISFA can be found at www.tisfa.ca or email at info@tisfa.ca