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National Awards witness Hindi resurgence

Veteran filmmaker B R Chopra received the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for lifelong contribution to Indian cinema at a function in Delhi on Tuesday. Awards were also given away for the best films of 1998.

The 46th National Film Awards, which showed a resurgence of Hindi cinema, were given away by President K R Narayanan in the presence of Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Arun Jaitley at the tastefully decorated Vigyan Bhavan. Speaking at the occasion, both called upon film-makers to be sensitive to the sensibilities of the viewing public.

While well-known film-maker Shyam Benegal's Hindi film Samar received the award for the best film of 1998, the award for the best director was given to Rajeevnath for the Malayalam film Janani. Ajay Devgan shared the best actor award for his role in Mahesh Bhatt's Zakhm with popular Malayalam star Mammootty, who got it for playing the role of Dr B R Ambedkar in the English film, Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, directed by Dr Jabbar Patel.

Well-known actress Shabana Azmi won the best actress award for her performance in Godmother, directed by Vinay Shukla.

The awards, which in the normal course should have been presented in mid-1999, were delayed because of various reasons, including political turmoil.

The 1998 blockbuster, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, by Karan Johar bagged the award for the best popular film providing wholesome entertainment while the Malayalam film Daya, by Venu, was selected for the Indira Gandhi Award for the First Film of a Director. The Nargis Dutt award for the best film on national integration went to Zakhm, which was produced by actress Pooja Bhatt who also played the main role in the film.

A majority of the 17 awards and mentions bagged by Hindi films have gone to mainstream commercial cinema. The films include the controversial Godmother which won the largest number of awards (six) for any single film, including best feature film in Hindi in the language category, and an award for best lyricist (Mati re mati re) for Javed Akhtar.

The supporting acting awards were also bagged by Hindi films: Manoj Bajpai for Ramgopal Varma's Satya and Suhasini Mulay for Gulzar's Hu Tu Tu.

In The Forest Hangs A Bridge by Sanjay Kak won the best non-feature film award, while Cinemaee Bhasha Aur Hindi Samvaadon Ka Vishleshan by Dr Kishore Vaswani was selected as the best book on cinema. Meenakshi Shedde being chosen as best film critic. Gaston Roberge was specially mentioned for the book, Communication Cinema Development.

The Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest national honour in cinema presented every year to senior film personalities for their contribution to the growth and development of the art, comprises a sum of Rs 2,00,000, apart from a citation and a shawl. This award is been decided by the government, while the other awards were selected by a 17-member feature film jury, a five-member non-feature jury and a three-member book jury.

Apart from the Swarna Kamal (golden lotus) and the Rajat Kamal (silver lotus), the cash component of the awards ranges from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 for feature films and Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 for non-feature films.

Other Hindi films which won awardswere Kabhi Pass Kabhi Fail by Virendra Saini and Dil Se, which won two awards, including one for best audiography for H Sridhar. While Hindi led with 17 awards, Malayalam was next with seven, followed by Tamil with four; Bengali, English and Telugu with three each, and Assamese, Kannada, Punjabi, Oriya and Marathi with an award each.

Perhaps for the first time in the history of the National Film Awards, a single individual won two awards each in consecutive years for different films. Renowned cinematographer Santosh Sivan, who had received the regional language film award for The Terrorist and for cinematography for Iruvar in 1997, got the award for the environmental conservation film, Malli, and for cinematography in Dil Se. Child actress Baby Amma (Sweta) got the award for best child star for Malli.

The Special Jury Award went to Asoke Viswanathan's Bengali film, Kichhu Sanglap Kichhu Pralap. Three persons received Special Mention: Dasari Narayan Rao for the Telugu film Kante Kuturne Kanu, actor Prakash Raj for the Telugu film Anthahpuram and actress Manju Warrier for several Malayalam films including Kannezuthi Pottum Thottu.

Ceremony photos: Sondeep Shankar

UNI