MUMBAI: Chennai based music label EarthSync bagged the 'Audience Award' at the Imaginaria International Film Festival and the 'Special Juror's Choice Award' at the Zanzibar International Film Festival held in July for their production, Laya Project.

Laya Project is a personal and collective musical tribute to the resilience of the human spirit, a celebration of the spirit of sound. The production creates a composition that mixes and enhances the original recordings, and embarks on an inspirational visual and musical journey crossing borders, while preserving the music of the people. Some of the performances are rare, and are documented for the first time in this production.

Says EarthSync's CEO Sonya Mazumdar: "The recent awards won by Laya Project at the Zanzibar International Film Festival and the Imaginaria International Film Festival encourages us immensely to know there are so many people across the world who appreciate our work."

EarthSync's CTO Yotam Agam adds, "Laya Project involves many cultures, and is also appreciated by so many different cultures. In every sense, it's truly global."

Over 80 films and 30 music groups were screened in this year's festival where Laya Project won the "Special Juror's Choice Award". ZIFF promotes movies internationally and also develops films and other relevant cultural industries as tools for social and economic growth in this region. The 6th Imaginaria International Film Festival was held from the 20th to 26th of July 2008 in Italy. Laya Project won the "Best Audience Award" over the 60 films showcased at the festival.

Committed to nurturing folk, tribal and native music from Asia, EarthSync brings this music to a global audience by bringing together the traditional and the contemporary from around the world.

For Laya Project, the international EarthSync team travelled for two years through the folk communities in the 2004 tsunami-affected regions of Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar and India. The musicians are the people of coastal and surrounding communities recorded on-location; the recordings were then mastered and enhanced at Clementine Studios, EarthSync's in-house recording studio.

Laya Project is distributed in India exclusively through EMI Music India, Major retail chains like Planet M, Landmark, Music World, Crossword and Odyssey stock the 3 different product formats: a) the deluxe box set consisting of the 68-minute documentary DVD and two CDs, b) the DVD only, and c) the two CDs only.