The winners of the 56th annual National Awards, which is for films released in the year 2008, have been announced. Nine films from the Hindi film industry took home the prestigious award with a total of 13 wins. Fashion, Rock On!!, A Wednesday!, Roadside Romeo, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye!, Mumbai Meri Jaan, Firaaq, Jodhaa Akbar and Thanks Maa were among the films that took home the prestigious award. Not only was the industry honored with awards in the animation, performance and of course film categories but also had wins in the technical categories like editing and art direction, choreography, and music. Of course the National Awards don’t just cover the Hindi film industry, there were also awards given to the Bengali, Malayalam, Tamil, Telegu, Marathi, Assamese, and Kannada film industries.
Fashion was honored with two awards: one for Kangana Ranaut as Best Supporting Actress and then Priyanka Chopra won Best Actress for her outstanding performance in the film. An avid tweeter on Twitter, congratulations from fans and the film fraternity poured in for the actress on her account. Priyanka wrote, “Just won the National award for fashion!!!!! Aaaaaaaahhhh!!! Too excited!! God is kind and so r all of u!! Love yalll!!!!!” “Thank u Madhur Ronnie Kangana Mughda Arjan arbaaz and the cast n crew!! A huge shout to my team and all of u!! God is kind!!! Yaaaaayyy!!” Later in another 140 she tweeted, “I’m walking on clouds!! Gonna treat myself., cheesy tacos!!! Yum!!!!” Madhur Bhandarkar tweeted, “Hey Priyanka, Kangna, Mugdha, Ronnie, Arjan, Arbaaz & entire team of Fashion.. Congrats… Full Fashion ka Jalwa…”.
Rock On!! was named Best Hindi Film and not only that Arjun Rampal won for Best Supporting Actor. Farhan celebrated on twitter as well saying, “Abhishek Kapoor… you pulled a rabbit out of the hat!” Adding, “Most importantly… all the people who saw Rock On and made it more than a film…. the fans! You Rock!!! God bless!” Commenting to BollySpice.com, one of the stars of the film, Purab Kohli said, “Well, it feels great even after a year and half after the release of the film, it has won yet another prestigious award. It feels more like rock on and on and on and on!”
Director Dibarker Banerjee found out about the Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment Award for Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! in rather an ironic way. He tweeted “Got the news for the national award amidst five hundred students talking about premarital sex. Bizarre.”
Other Hindi films recognized were Roadside Romeo for Best Animation Film and Neeraj Pandey was given the Indira Gandhi Award for Best First Film for his brilliant A Wednesday!. In the technical categories: Firaaq took home two awards for Best Editing and Best Art Direction, Jodhaa Akbar not only won the Best Costume Design award for Neeta Lulla’s work, it also was given the Best Choreography award for the outstanding ‘Azeem-o-shaan Shehenshah’. Mumbai Meri Jaan won for Best Special Effects. Also doing Bollywood proud was young Shams Patel who won Best Child Artist for Thanks Maa.
It was a Bengali film Antaheen by director Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury that took home the biggest prize Best Film. The film stars Sharmila Tagore, Rahul Bose, Aparna Sen and Radhika Apte, The Best Director nod went to Bala for the Tamil film Naan Kadavul. Bala told Sify.com, “I dedicate this award to Balu Mahendra sir my guru and his wife Akila, they were the only people who were sure that I will win the best director award. Actually I was betting big on Arya, Pooja and Arthur Wilson (cinematographer) getting the awards. Anyway I’m happy as this will encourage good cinema in Tamil.”
Jogva, a Marathi film directed by Rajeev Patil, took home quite a few awards as well. Not only did it win the Best Film On Social Issues, Upendra Limaye won the Best Actor Award for his performance in the film. Jogva was also honored with music awards including the Best Music Direction award for Ajay and Atul plus Hariharan was named Best Playback Singer Male for the song ‘Jeev DanglaGungla Rangla. Also honored for her work on ‘Jeev DanglaGungla Rangla’ was Shreya Ghosal who won the Best Playback Singer Female for that song and for “Pherari Mon” from Antaheen.
Harishcnadrachi Factory, India’s submission to the Oscars, which sadly did not make the final cut, did however win for Best Marathi Film. In the other Best Film categories the winners were Mon Jai (Assamese), Shob Charitro Kalponik (Bengali), Vimukthi (Kannada), Thirakkada (Malayalam), Veranam Airam (Tamil) and 1940 Lookagramam (Telugu).
BollySpice.com congratulates all the winners!
