Sonali Kulkarni who has worked in many Bollywood film (her latest being Taxi 9211) is felicitated with the Best Actress award in Italy for her film, ‘Fucco Di Sume’.

The actress won the Best Actress award at the Busto Arsizio film festival in Italy for her Italian film where she plays a fisherman’s daughter who falls in love with a prince. The film is set against the backdrop of war between Italy and Germany. Love between the prince and the fisherman’s daughter blossoms against a backdrop of terrible violence.

Sonali in an interview from Italy said, “I am overwhelmed. It came as a complete surprise to me, because I was here to attend the première of the film. While we were in Naples, members of the award committee informed me that I’ve been selected as Best Actress. My co-star Omar Shariff won the Best Actor award for the same film.”

Sonali is the first non-Italian actress to win the prestigious award. “This is the biggest award for Italian films. All Italian films released over the year get nominations and an eight-member panel decides the main category awards. This time, all eight jury members were on the panel for the Oscar awards too, this year,” she says.

Before the shooting of the film, Sonali went through rigorous training in Italian. The talented actress said, “Now I’ve become quite fluent in the language. I underwent coaching over five weeks. And no, I didn’t have a give a single retake on account of my Italian dialogues.”