National Film Award winners Soorarai Pottru and Tanhaji prove that theatrical and streaming can co-exist

While Soorarai Pottru won the Best Feature Film honour, Tanhaji won the Best Popular Film award. Soorarai Pottru star Suriya shared the Best Actor award with Tanhaji’s Ajay Devgn. This is the third year in a row that the Best Actor award is being shared — Manoj Bajpayee and Dhanush won the honour at last year’s ceremony, while Ayushmann Khurrana and Vicky Kaushal picked up the Best Actor award at the 66th edition.

Soorarai Pottru also won the Best Actress award (Aparna Balamurali) and Best Screenplay award (Sudha Kongara and Shalini Usha Nair). Tanhaji bagged the Best Costume Design award too.

Both films represent the breadth of the pandemic’s impact on the film industry at large. While Tanhaji was released in January 2020, just a couple of months before the first pandemic-induced lockdown — it ended up making over Rs 350 crore at the box office — Soorarai Pottru was released towards the tail end of the year, when producers were offloading titles to streaming platforms. In a way, both films represent the end of one era of theatrical blockbusters, and the beginning of a new era of streaming hits.

Other notable winners include the Malayalam film Ayyappanum Koshiyum, which picked up National Awards for Best Director (the late Sachy), Best Supporting Actor (Biju Menon), Best Stunt Choreography and Best Female Playback Singer. Rajiv Kapoor’s final film Toolsidas Junior, meanwhile, was declared the Best Hindi Film.

Speaking about the awards to news agency ANI, I&B minister Anurag Thakur said, “I want to congratulate all the jury members and all those people whose work was reviewed and would like to congratulate those recipients who will be awarded with the National Film Awards. A word of appreciation for everyone who has done an outstanding job.” He added, “I am glad that this year we will be holding the 68 National Film Awards since we could not hold the awards for two years because of Covid.”