Honours for Vinod Khanna, Sridevi
NEW DELHI: 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”.
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. Directed by Rima Das, the critically-acclaimed film also scored for best location, sound recordist, editing and best child artiste (Bhanita Das). Jayaraj was named best director and the best adapted screenplay writer for his Malayalam film “Bhayanakam”, which also won the best cinematography award.
Riddhi Sen was recognised as the best actor for Kaushik Ganguly’s Bengali film “Nagarkirtan”, which bagged awards in multiple categories -- best costume, makeup and special jury.
Khanna, the suave actor of films such as “Amar, Akbar, Antony” , became the 49th recipient of the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, Indian cinema’s highest honour.
Sridevi, was recognised for her role of an angry mother seeking justice for her daughter in the rape revenge drama “Mom”.
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”.
Mainstream blockbuster “Baahubali: The Conclusion” won the National Award for best popular film providing wholesome entertainment, besides being named for special effects and action direction. Ganesh Acharya won for his choreography for the Hindi film “Toilet: Ek Prem Katha”. “Newton” was named the best Hindi film and a special mention went to its actor Pankaj Tripathi for his portrayal of a cynical CRPF officer.
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 best film on social issues.