South Indian stars set to shine at awards ceremony

KUALA LUMPUR: About 200 Indian artistes will wow fans at the South Indian International Movie Awards (Siima) ceremony, which is hosted by Malaysia this year.

The two-day event at Stadium Negara, which begins tomorrow, will be attended by Danush, Shivakartikeyan, Kush­­­boo, Vikram Prabhu, Trisha, K. Bhagyaraj, Radhika, Pritviraj, Vijay Yesudas, Shivraj Kumar, Sunil, Arya, Yuvan Sankar Raja and Soori.

Besides artistes from the south, Bollywood stars like legendary actress Sridevi (pic) and her husband, producer Boney Kapoor, will also be here.

Official broadcaster Astro will showcase the red carpet event on its Ulagam channel.

“An awards ceremony of this scale is a difficult project to take on. But we were able to pull it off, thanks to help from Tourism Malaysia,” Astro senior vice-president Dr Rajamani Chellamuthu said yesterday.

There will be 90 awards given out over the two-day event, which recognises the artistic and technical achievements in the south Indian film industry.

Besides the best actor, best actress and best director categories, Siima also has 10 unique categories, such as Youth Icon, Stylish Actress, Sensa­tional Debut and Most Popular Star on Social Media awards.

Tomorrow, the awards will be given out to Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu films.

The Saturday ceremony focuses solely on Tamil films, with Vishwaroopam, Thanga Meengal, Arrambam and Pandiya Naadu leading the nominations.

Organised by Siima and supported by Malaysia Major Events, the organisers have prepared 4,500 seats for south Indian film fans.

Tickets are still available, priced from RM99 to RM1,499 (one ticket is valid for one day only). They can be purchased at www.ticketpro.com.my or at the venue itself from 10am today.