IMAGE: Zarin Shihab in Aattam: The Play.
Malayalam film Aattam: The Play has won the award for Best Feature Film. Sooraj R Barjatya was judged Best Director for the Hindi movie Uunchai at the National Film Awards announced on Friday.
The Best Actress award was shared by Nithya Menon, who won it for the Tamil film Thiruchitrambalam, and Manasi Parekh for the Gujarati movie Kutch Express.
IMAGE: Dhanush and Nithya Menon in Thiruchitrambalam.
The award for Best Actor went to Rishabh Shetty for the Kannada hit Kantara. The film also won an award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment.
Neena Gupta won the Best Supporting Actress award for Uunchai.
‘It is yet to sink in. I’ve got two National Awards in the past and I’m getting another National Award after many many years, it’s a big thing for me,’ said Neena Gupta, who bagged awards for Bazar Sitaram in 1993 and for Woh Chokri in 1994.
The Haryanvi film Fouja won Pavan Malhotra a Best Supporting Actor and won two other awards — Best Debut Film of a Director for Pramod Kumar and Best Lyrics to Naushad Sadar Khan.
The Sharmila Tagore-Manoj Bajpayee starrer Gulmohar was adjudged the best Hindi film. Its director Rahul V Chittela took home an award for Best Dialogue Writer along with Arpita Mukherjee. Bajpayee also got a special mention.
IMAGE: Sharmila Tagore and Manoj Bajpayee in Gulmohar.
A R Rahman won the National Award for Best Music Director (background music) for his work in Mani Ratnam’s Ponnyin Selvan-Part 1, which was also named the Best Tamil film.
Pritam won the award for Best Music Director (songs) for Brahmastra-Part 1. Arijit Singh was named the Best Male Playback Singer for the song Kesariya.
The Ranbir Kapoor-Alia Bhatt starrer also bagged an award for Best Film in AVGC (animation, visual effects, gaming and comic).
Singer Bombay Jayashri won the award for Best Female Playback Singer for the track Chaayum Veyil in Saudi Vellaka CC 225/2009, which also won the Best Malayalam Film award.
Besides the Best Actress nod, the comedy Thiruchitrambalam also earned an honour for Best Choreography for Jani Master and Sathish Krishnan.
Niki Joshi won the trophy for Best Costume Designer for Kutch Express.
IMAGE: Aishwarya Rai and Vikram in Ponniyin Selvan.
Ravi Varman bagged Best Cinematography for Mani Ratnam’s Ponniyin Selvan, which also took the honour for Best Sound Design for Anand Krishnamoorthi.
Aattam won two more awards, including Best Screenplay (original) for Anand Ekarshi and Best Editing for Mahesh Bhuvanend.
The award for Best Action Direction (stunt choreography) went to Anbumani and Arivumani, jointly known as Anbariv.
The Best Child Artist award went to Sreepath for Malikapurram in Malayalam.
From Bengali cinema, Aparajito won the award for Best Make-Up and Best Production Design for Anand Adhya, while the Best Bengali Film went to Kaushik Ganguly’s Kaberi Antardhan.
The other regional films that won awards include Kartikeya 2 (Telugu), Baaghi Di Dhee (Punjabi), Daman (Odia), Vaalvi (Marathi) and KGF: Chapter 2 (Kannada). The Best Tiwa film award was won by Sikaisal.
From the non-feature category, the top honour went to Siddhant Sarin’S Ayena by director .
Film-maker Vishal Bhardwaj won the Best Music Director for his short film Fursat.
‘Just heard about the National Award for Fursat. I am deeply happy to get my ninth National Award. It’s the biggest award of our country, the only one that truly matters. And winning this is the greatest validation of my work! Thank you jury for this. Now I need to strive for a double digit,’ the composer-director said in a statement.
The Best Film Critic award went to Deepak Dua.
Anirudha Bhattacharjee and Parthiv Dhar won the Best Book on cinema for Kishore Kumar: The Ultimate Biography.
The awards were announced by feature film jury head Rahul Rawail.
