National Awards for Vinod Khanna, Sridevi
The National Film Awards jury on Friday doffed its hat to two of Hindi cinema’s biggest stars who passed away in the year that was, honouring Vinod Khanna with the Dadasaheb Phalke award for lifetime achievement and Sridevi with the best actress prize for Mom.
Keeping the balance between regional and Hindi cinema and commercial and indie interests, the National Award for best feature film went to the Assamese film Village Rockstars, an aspirational tale of a village girl who dreams of making it big.
Jayaraj was named best director and the best adapted screenplay writer for his Malayalam film Bhayanakam. Riddhi Sen was recognised as the best actor for Kaushik Ganguly’s Bengali film Nagarkirtan.
Khanna, the suave actor of films such as Amar, Akbar, Antony who grew into character roles in his last years, became the 49th recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award.
Oscar-winning music composer A R Rahman swept the best music direction category for the Tamil Film Kaatru Veliyidai and the best background music for the Hindi film Mom. Sinjar, made in Jasari language, spoken in Lakshadweep, won the Indira Gandhi award for the best debut film of a director to Pampally.
Baahubali: The Conclusion won the National Award for best popular film providing wholesome entertainment. Newton was named the best Hindi film and a special mention went to its actor Pankaj Tripathi.
The Nargis Dutt award for the best feature film on national integration went to the Marathi film Dhappa, while the Malayalam film Aalorumkkam was recognised as the best film on social issues.
Hindi film star Divya Dutta was named the best supporting actress for her role in Irada, which also bagged the award for the best film on environmental conservation/preservation.
Fahad Fazil won the best supporting actor for the Malayalam film Thondimuthalum Driksakshiyum. Actor Parvathy also received special mention for her performance in Malayalam film Take Off.
Cutting across language barriers, special mentions were given to Kaccha Limbu (Marathi), Hello Arsi (Odiya). The other winners in the language categories include Ishu (Assamese), To-Let (Tamil), Hebettu Ramakka (Kannada), Ghazi (Telugu), Mayurakshi (Bengali), Dhh (Gujarati), Paddayi (Tulu), Walking With The Wind (Ladakhi) and Sinjar (Jasari).
Mhorkya was adjudged the best children’s film.