Seto Surya (White Sun), the critically-acclaimed movie by director Deepak Rauniyar, has bagged the New Voices/New Visions award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival, currently being held in Florida in the US. The two-week long event is the 27th iteration of the prestigious festival which showcased 180 films from more than 50 countries across five venues this year.

Taking to social media following the announcement on Saturday evening, director Rauniyar expressed jubilation over the most recent accolade for his movie. “Thrilled with the news from Palm Springs International Film Festival. White Sun has won the fest’s New Voices/New Visions Award. Congratulations team. This is awesome!” he wrote, posting a picture of the film’s lead actors Dayahang Rai and Rabindra Singh Baniya attending the festival. 

Seto Surya, a dark comedy about two brothers, played by Rai and Baniya, on either side of the decade-long Maoist insurgency, has made a big splash in the international film festival circuit in the past year. In December, it won the Best Film at the 27th Singapore International Film Festival (SGIFF), where it was lauded as an “exceptional and incisive film.”

The movie also garnered critical acclaim at prestigious film festivals including Cannes, Venice International Film Festival and Toronto Film Festival. The movie is Rauniyar’s second directorial. His first movie, Highway, released in 2012, was also feted for bringing to the silver screen a theme rooted to Nepal’s socio-economic and political realities.

At the Palm Springs fest, Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann, Germany’s submission for the foreign-language film Academy Award, won the FIPRESCI Prize for best foreign-language film of the year, awarded by a jury of international film critics.

The FIPRESCI Prize for best actor went to Gael Garcia Bernal for his performance in Pablo Larrain’s Neruda, and the prize for best actress went to Isabelle Huppert for her star turn in Paul Verhoeven’s Elle. Neruda also won the fest’s Cine Latino Award, according to a report by The Hollywood Reporter.