On Tuesday, the 54th National Film Awards winners for 2006 were announced. The National Film Awards are one of the most prestigious film awards given in India and are awarded by three-member panel. Being a national award they are not limited to one film industry and this year there were winners from Hindi, Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, and Malayalam films.
The Hindi film industry was honored with ten awards, four of those going to the brilliant film Lage Raho Munnabhai, starring Sanjay Dutt, Arshad Warsi, Vidya Balan and Dilip Prabhavalkar. The awards included Best Screenplay for Abhijat Joshi, Raj Kumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra and for his work on the song ‘Bande Mein Tha Dum – Vande Mataram’, Swanand Kirkire was given the Best Lyricist award.
For “revalidating the philosophy of non-violence in a strife-torn world and helping rediscover the Gandhi within the common man”, the film also won the Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment award. Dilip Prabhavalkar was given the Best Supporting Actor award for his performance as Gandhi.
Dilip Prabhavalkar was honored also with the Best Supporting Actor award for the Marathi film Shevri.
Also from Bollywood, Konkona Sen Sharma won Best Supporting Actress for her incredible performance as Indu in Vishal Bhardwaj’s Omkara. For his direction of the masterpiece, Bhardwaj received a special jury award.
Khosla Ka Ghosla, directed by Dibakar Bannerjee and starring Anupam Kher and Boman Irani was given the Best Hindi Film Award.
Kabul Express directed by Kabir Khan shared the Indira Gandhi Award for the Best First Film of a Director with the Malayalam film Eakantham directed by Madhukaithapuram. The two films also shared the Best Producer Award for Aditya Chopra for Kabul Express and Anthony Joseph for Eakantham.
Madhur Bhandarkar was named Best Director for Traffic Signal, which starred Kunal Khemu, Neetu Chandra, Ranvir Shorey and Konkona Sen Sharma. About winning he said, “The National Award is the only big award for me. It’s an honour and I could not have asked for more.”
The Best Actress Award went to Priyamani for the Tamil film Paruthi Veeran directed by Ameer Sulthan and the jury said she was honored, “for portraying the ferocity of love as a firebrand village girl.” About Soumitra Chatterjee, who won the Best Actor Award for his performance in the Bengali film Podokkhep, the citations said “etched the agonies and elations of an elederly person trying to keep peace with changing times.”
The big award of the night, the Golden Lotus for Best Film, went to the Malayalam film Pulijanmam directed by Priyanandan. The film, based on a play by the same name, according to the citation was “a layered film that uses metaphors to address global and local issues of contemporary society.”
Bollyspice congratulates all the winners!
