Office bearers of Tamil Film Directors Association, including veterans like Balumahendra and K Bhagyaraj, called on Mani Ratnam at his office in Chennai on Friday and congratulated the ace director for the honour bestowed on him at the Venice Film Festival.

Those who were present include Vasanth, R K Selvamani, Santhanabarathy, Lingusamy, Ezhil, Balaji Sakthivel, S P Jananathan, Rajakumaran and Vikraman among others. They presented a bouquet to Mani and exchanged pleasantries with him.

On Monday, hailing Mani Ratnam as ‘one of the great innovators in contemporary Indian cinema’, the Venice International Film Festival honoured him with the 2010 Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award.

With the award Mani Ratnam joined Sylvester Stallone, Agnes Varda, Abbas Kiarostami, and Takeshi Kitano who have ‘left a mark’ on contemporary cinema. After the award ceremony, the festival premiere of ‘Raavanan’ was screened.

Mani was accompanied by wife Suhasini, and Vikram. ‘Mani Ratnam used to make movies only in his native tongue, Tamil, but has been one of a handful of filmmakers to successfully handle the transition to the All-India market,’ said the Venice Film Festival director Marco Mueller explaining the choice in a news release.

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