53rd National Film Awards

After almost a year of legal battles on August 7th the India National Film Awards were announced. The awards are given to Indian films produced in 2005. These awards are the equivalent to the American Oscar’s.

Here are some of the awards:

Best Feature Film: Kaalpurush (Memories in the Mist), Budhadeb Dasgupta, in Bengali
Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment: Rang De Basanti (Paint it Yellow), Rakesh Omprakash Mehra, in Hindi
Best Feature Film on National Integration: Daivanamanthil, Jayaraj, in Malayalam
Indira Gandhi Award for the Best Fist Film of a Director: Parineeta, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, in Hindi
Best Film on Social Issues: Iqbal, Nagesh Mukunoor, in Hindi
Best Direction: Parzania, Rahul Dholakia, in English
Best Actor: Amitabh Bachchan for Black
Best Actress: Sharika for Parzania
Best Cinematography: Spingaram, Madhu Ambat

I also include these awards to show the diversity of the Indian film industry that is sort of classified according to the movie language. As a note, Bollywood films are only in Hindi and represent only a fragment (about 30%) of India’s film industry.

Assamese: Kadam Tole Krishna Nache, Suman Haripriya
Bengali: Harbart, Suman Mukherjee
Hindi: Black, Sanjay Leela Bhansali (Known as Bollywood)
Kannada: Thaayi, Baraguru Ramchandrappa (Sometimes called Sandalwood)
Malayalam: Thanmatra, Blessy (Known as Malluwood)
Marathi: Dombivali Fast, Nishikant Kamat
Oriya: Kathantara, Himanshu Khatua
Punjabi: Baghi, Sukhminder Dhanjal
Tamil: Aadum Kothu, T V Chandran (Known as Kollywood)
Telugu: Bommalata (A Bellyful Of Dreams), Prakash Kovelamudi
English: 15 Park Avenue, Aparma Sen

There were no awards for Aish but it was fascinating to learn more about the India film industry and found that India also produces art cinema mainly in the Malayalam language. Now I have something new to explore.