Chennai, Sep 23 (IANS) Almost the entire galaxy of Tamil filmdom will shift to Kuala Lumpur this weekend where the second International Tamil Film Awards (ITFA) festival will be held Sunday.

The festival, widely acknowledged as 'Tamil Oscar', is being organised at the Putra stadium in Burkit Jalil.

Like ITFA 2003, this event is being organised by Astro Vanavil, Malaysia's only 24-hour Tamil entertainment channel.

The India-based Raadan Media Works, a creation of film and TV star Radhika Sarat Kumar, will coordinate with Astro Vanavil in a live telecast of the awards ceremony as well as related programmes in which every prominent Tamil film personality is expected to participate.

The live telecast will be watched by millions in Tamil Nadu and other parts of India, two million Malaysian Tamils and the rest of the vast Tamil diaspora in the US, Western Europe, the Gulf and elsewhere.

Awards will be presented in 19 categories including to the best film, best actor, best actress, best comedian, best villain and best music director.

The winners at ITFA 2003 included Vikram (best actor), Simran (best actress), Mani Ratnam (best director), Srikanth (best male debutant), Trisha (best female debutante) and Vishal Bharadwaj (best music director).

The awardees are selected from four nominees in each category. They are selected by a system that combines evaluation by an expert jury and popular choice.

The jury comprises writer Sujatha, having a long association with Tamil cinema, director and former actor S.P. Muthuraman and film and TV personality Suhasini Mani Ratnam.    

One out of the four nominees in each category is selected by the viewers voting on the Internet and on the mobile phone through SMS.

For a peek preview, according to the latest available count of the viewers' votes, the four leading nominees in that order in the three main categories were: Vijay, Vikram, Surya and Kamal Haasan (best actor); Jyothika, Trisha, Devyani and Sneha (best actress); and "Kaakka Kaakka", "Kaadhal Kondein", "Parthiban Kanavu" and "Anbe Sivam" (best film).