Youth icon and one of the leading thought-leaders of our generation, Ayushmann Khurrana, is thrilled that the Berlin International Film Festival has decided that its performance awards will be gender-neutral from next year’s edition! The festival, instead of awards for the best actor and actress, will only recognise best leading performance and best supporting performance! Ayushmann, who has been very vocal about normalising gender conversations in India, is ecstatic!
The young star says, “I, wholeheartedly, laud the Berlin Film Festival’s decision to award gender-neutral recognitions and I hope all film festivals across the world and India follow suit. We are all actors at the end of the day and gender divisions only highlight the long prevalent divisive nature of societies. Thus, it is important that gender-neutral awards should become the norm when it comes to adjudicating the best work in a year.”
Ayushmann feels films and film-stars can do their bit constantly to have such relevant conversations in a bid to achieve gender parity in society. He says, “Gender divisions are too deep-rooted and the film industry can really do their bit to champion change. Gendered awards, according to me, are totally outdated and should be scrapped.”
The versatile actor pleads to all award functions in India to seriously look at this inevitable trend. “I seriously hope all award functions in India take a step in the right direction and do what is the most obvious thing towards having a more progressive society. For me, good performances are good performances and they should be seen without the gender lens,” adds the actor.
