FIRST OFF . . .

Indian film maker Mira Nair and Hungarian director Erika Szanto shared the Lillian Gish award for best feature film Sunday night at the close of the fourth annual Women in Film Festival in and around the Beverly Center Cineplex theaters. Nair won for her film “Salaam Bombay!”--a study of life on the streets of that Indian metropolis--while Szanto won for “Elysium.” The festival, sponsored by Women in Film and California First Bank, honors the achievements of women in all aspects of film making. Presenters of the awards included actresses Tyne Daly, Delta Burke, Catherine Hickland, Lisa Hartman and Amy Madigan and actors Georg Stanford Brown, Gerald McRaney and Ned Beatty. Other winners included Soviet director Yelena Smelaya (television special), Lisa Demberg and Roni Weisberg (best miniseries/movie of the week), P. K. Knelman, Sharron Miller, Shelley List and Katheryn Ford (best TV episode), and Canadians Janis Cole and Holly Dale (best documentary). Awards also were given for best music video, animation, student film and short film.