61st National Film Awards [Archive]

raagadevan

16th April 2014, 06:31 PM

The list of winners of the 61st NATIONAL FILM AWARDS (For the year 2013):

Best Feature Film – Anand Gandhi’s SHIP OF THESEUS (English/multilingual)

Best Popular Film –BHAAG MILKHA BHAAG (Hindi)

Best feature film on National Integration - Balu Mahendra’s THALAMURAIGAL (Tamil).

Best Director- Hansal Mehta, SHAHID (Hindi)

Best Actor (Shared) - Rajkummar Rao, SHAHID (Hindi) & Suraj Venjaramoodu, PERARIYATHAVAR (Malayalam)

Best Actress - Geetanjali Thapa, LIAR’S DICE (Hindi)

Best Supporting Actor - Saurabh Shukla, JOLLY LLB (Hindi)

Best Supporting Actress (Shared) - Amruta Subhash, ASTU (Marathi) & Aida El-Kashef, SHIP OF THESEUS

Best Male Playback Singer - Rupankar Bagchi, JATISWAR (Bengali)

Best Female Playback Singer - Bela Shende, KONCHA (Marathi)

Best Music Director (Songs)- Kabir Suman, JAATISHWAR (Bengali)

Best Music Director (Background) - Shantanu Moitra, NAA BANGARU TALLI (Telugu)

Best Lyricist - Na.Muthukumar, “Ananda Yaazhai Meettugirai…”, THANGAMEENGAL (Tamil)

Best Non-Feature Film - RANGBHOOMI

Best Director ( Non-Feature) - Pranjal Dua, CHIDIYA UDH

Best Book - Cinema Ga Cinema (Telugu)

Best Film Critic - Alaka Sahani (English)

Best Child Artists (Shared) - Somnath Awghade for FANDRY (Marathi) and Sadhana for THANGAMEENGAL (Tamil)

Best Editing - Sabu Joseph, VALLINAM (Tamil)

Here is the complete List:

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/61st-national-film-awards-complete-list-of-winners/465507-8-66.html

mappi

18th April 2014, 05:25 PM

Even though I do not know when and where the nominations are published, but having followed several Film based awards, notably our nation's recognition for Film as an Art, I can say that National Film award (NFA) is not an ordinary selection. In India, we have an industry within an industry, and that what keeps us rolling forward. Movie industry is not an exception. Each region has its own proper registered office with administrative members and also big production houses which reign over the region’s market, including a huge number of ‘indie’ movie producers. To have an equilibrium, NFA has put in place a system. Its too much to ask for when it needs to pick up films from a lot of more than 1000, those which are getting certified each year. So the phases are as follows :

1. Entry : Each year NFA calls to production houses to aptly fill a forum to enter the awards, including the category to be contested. Any film work can be submitted irrespective to its theatrical release (some International awards ask for a theatrical release). The major criteria is to be certified with a date range from 01/01/YEAR to 31/12/SAME-YEAR.

Here is the entry call for 61st Awards : http://www.dff.nic.in/final%202014.jpg

2. Selection : A committee works on the entries and selects films, which I think, is based on the Posters, Trailers & theme. I do not know whether a film is watched at this point. Once selected, the production house is instructed to come up with several materials pertaining to the film, including the presence of the film maker and technicians for a Q&A

Here is the entry form : http://www.dff.nic.in/59th_NFA_Regulations-1.pdf
[It has some awesome details if you wish to read them]

3. Nomination : Another committee chooses the films based on the selection criteria, keeping in mind several set of rules which are set to remove partiality and give opportunity to every single selection. This includes, State, Regional and National level film categories. How they are defined, I have no clue.

4. Award : A jury watches all the nominated movie and pronounces the winner. The basic criteria looked up are National Integration, cultural aspects and the art form used. Their judgement is final, no appeals encouraged.

Notes On IR :

What I guess for Sri Rama Jayam is that, it could have been eliminated keeping in mind the secular aspect, I would never know. Or maybe the equipments in the cinema halls may have played a spoil sport, but I am not sure as a competent Jury (which I believe they are) should pick up the needed sound materials in any theatre. And moreover the visuals must be capturing, as a BGM is the unification of music & footage, it will & should be seen together.

And for OA, it was merely battled out as it has only an awesome art, but other aspects were missing. The telugu film ‘Naa Bangaru Talli’, going by the trailer, has a story of a family from a specific region, the day to day life and culture of a state, the dark and bright sides of life, woman - education, tolerance, social rights & fate, relationship between father & daughter., etc. So it gets more points already and a BGM will surely gets remarked. Now I allow you to jot down OA, you will see why it got eliminated. An art is not just how you project it - For an award, the art should Have and Serve a purpose. The collaboration with such projects is a big plus to be remarked else there are chances to get (voluntarily) scored off.

Unlike the other famous awards, where even technology is a preferred art form (you got to look at it carefully, as it business minded where the ceremony is a big enveloped marketing with all celebrities under one roof), committees like NFA, are quite sincere to their attempts in recognising a whole package and motivating film makers to make good cinema.

Personnel Note :

I strongly wish that media takes up their long lost ‘actual’ role to report us with in depth details about such events; right from entries, how the selections are done, the nomination list and finally the winners including coverage / interviews of film makers; rather than always rolling their dices with all 6 sides of Gossips. Also they should do written protestations through articles, the injustice happening to ‘indie’films (which usually fetch accolades for the state). For ex. They were busy talking about anything else other than supporting films like Thanga Meengal. Only a handful of people (like me) gave a call that the film does not merit such attitude, when it did not get a theatre to release. I was worried that the movie will not reach an international film festival which has theatrical release as a selection criteria. Even before watching the movie, the theme itself says that its a material not so normal. So media should report properly and not fabricate informations that only helps the key-board warriors.

I give all the winners my appreciations and its time to start picking the awarded films and watch them.