New Delhi, 10 Aug

Imtiaz Ali's directorial "Amar Singh Chamkila" was bestowed with the three top honours at the 6th edition of the Screenwriters Association Awards. The event, which honours ground breaking films, series, and TV shows of 2024 that pushed the envelope of storytelling, was held on Saturday in Mumbai.

There were 1500 entries and 15 categories, which were judged by a jury of 15 esteemed screenwriters for over seven months, according to a press release.

Helmed by Imtiaz, ‘Amar Singh Chamkila’ was released on 12 April 2024, featuring Diljit Dosanjh in the titular role, and Parineeti Chopra as his love interest. The film was nominated in four categories, winning three out of them.

Imtiaz and his screenwriter brother Sajid Ali took home two trophies for best story and best screenplay. The third award went to lyricist Irshad Kamil for his work on the track titled ‘Baaja’.

"Thank you, SWA. Getting this award from the fraternity makes it more special," Sajid said on his win.

Irshad said he is happy to win the honour. "A lot of things were proven tonight, including something that I had always believed: I am my own competition...It's not easy for a writer to write. There's an entire universe in their soul, which they summon up to write. It was difficult for me to understand how Chamkila would write. I am so happy I won it for ‘Baaja’.”

In the feature film category, Kunal Kemmu, who made his directorial debut with ‘Madgaon Express’, bagged the best dialogue award for his film.

In the best debut feature film category, there were three winners: Shuchi Talati for ‘Girls Will Be Girls’, Biplab Goswami and Sneha Desai for ‘Laapataa Ladies’ and Bodhayan Roychaudhury for ‘Sector 36’.

 In the Web (Drama) section, ‘Freedom At Midnight’ got two awards: best story for Abhinandan Gupta and best screenplay for Gupta, Adwitiya Kareng Das, Gundeep Kaur and Revanta Sarabhai.

Anubhav Sinha and Trishant Srivastava won the best dialogue award for their work in 'IC 814: The Kandahar Hijack'.

In the television section, ‘Anupamaa’ won best dialogues, written by Divy Nidhi Sharma and Aparajita Sharma.