Ace cinematographer and director Santosh Sivan's first English movie 'Before the Rains’ has become a hot property in international festivals, all around the world.  The movie has been invited for almost all the important festivals worldwide.

Recently 'Before The Rains' had won three awards in 41st Annual World Fest 2008 Grand REMI Awards held in Houston, Texas, U.S.A. It won in the categories of best film, cinematography and music.

The movie which was selected as the Best Theatrical Feature revolves around a man crushed between his honesty and his ambitions. Set in the colonial period of 1937, the story is told in the backdrop of the plantation of tea and spices during the British rule by Indians. The film  made under the banner of Excalibur Pictures,  stars Rahul Bose, Leopold Benedict, Nandita Das, Linus Roach,  and Jennifer Ehle.

Santosh Sivan, as usual with his movies, handled both direction and cinematography for 'Before The Rains’.

Santosh Sivan's  earlier  directorial ventures like  ‘Hello’, ‘Malli’, ‘The Terrorist’, ‘Asoka’, ‘Navarasa’, ‘Ananthabhadram’, ‘Prarambha’ and ‘Tahaan’ were all different in their narratives and each of them mesmerized the audience with their visual content..

He has won many accolades in and out of India for these films, the most for ‘Malli’ and ‘The Terrorist’, which put him on the World's famous directors' list.

In fact, 'The Terrorist' is counted as one of the best 100 films in the world by Pulitzer-prize winning movie expert Roger Ebert.

Santhosh Sivan considers his new movie as totally different from the typical Hollywood movies. Even though the movie is made in English, the filmmaker is not planning to release it in Indian theatres.