NEW DELHI: Eminent film critic Aruna Vasudev, who recently stepped down as founder-director of the Osian’s-Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema, was felicitated for services to film criticism and the growth of Asian cinema.

In the event, organised by the Delhi Malayalee Film Society and the Habitat Film Club, the critic was paid laudable tributes by film society movement veteran N P Radhakrishnan and educator president Professor Omcherry N N Pillai.

Several award winners in the 54th National Film Awards were also felicitated on the occasion. They included Films Division chief producer Kuldip Sinha. Sinha announced that the Division had a collection of over 8,000 films in its digital archives, which could be used for research by anyone.

Though Vasudev is no longer director of the Festival, she continues as a consultant, and is also on the Board of Directors of the Osian's Connoisseurs of Art. She is currently a consulting editor with Wisdom Tree for its series of books on Indian cinema, of which six have already been published.

Vasudev founded the world’s first quarterly on Asian cinema, ‘Cinemaya’, in 1988 and was later one of the founders of the Network for Promotion of Asian Cinema (NETPAC), of which she is the president.