"Our hard work has paid off," says debutant actor Abhimanyu Dassani, whose maiden venture, Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota, won the Grolsch People's Choice Midnight Madness Award at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) on Sunday.

Directed by Vasan Bala, the action comedy revolves around a man who suffers from congenital insensitivity to pain and uses this to his advantage to hunt down criminals. Dassani is aware that his choice of debut film is at odds with that of other star kids who get launched with big-ticket entertainers.