Dadasaheb Phalke award winner Mukherjee gets a standing ovation

Others present included I and B secretary Y.N. Chaturvedi, director of film festivals malati sahai, jury chairmen goutam ghose (feature), Dr Jabbar Patel (non-feature) and senior scribe K. Satchidanandan (critics) and senior film personalities. The function was tely said the government had recently taken major steps to help the film industry including the move to curb video piracy by way of amendments in the cable television networks (regulation) act. He reiterated the centre’s desire to help the film industry in the country. Mr Chaturvedi and Ms Sahai also spoke on the occasion.

Renowned director-cameraman Shaji N. Karun received the best film award for Malayalam feature film Vanaprastham while eminent filmmaker Buddhadeb Dasgupta received the best director award for the Bengali uttara, (Dasgupta won the same award at the recent Venice International Film Festival). Vanaprastham producer and popular star Mohanlal got the best actor award while actress Kiron Kher bagged the best actress award for the film Bariwali directed by Rituparno Ghosh and produced by her husband producer Anupam Kher. Arvind Sinha’s Dui Paatan Ke Beech Mein (Hindi) got the best non-feature film award. The best book award was shared by two authors: Madhu Eravamlara for Malayala Cinemayun Sahityavum and Aruna Anant Damle for Marathi Chitrapat Sangeetachi Vatchal. The critic award went to I. Shanmugha Das.

This is the second time this year that the President graced the dais at Vigyan Bhavan to give away the awards, since the awards for 1998 were given away on February 15. The 1998 awards could not be given away in 1999 due to various reasons, including the political situation. Apart from the Swarna Kamal and the Rajat Kamal, the cash awards range from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 for feature films and Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 for non-feature films.

A majority of the 38 feature film awards have gone to films that have been commercially successful or have been acclaimed by the average cine-goer rather than the cine-literate critic. Films like Hey Ram, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Sarfarosh, Vanaprastham, Shool, Shaheed Udham Singh and Paromitar Ek Din are films known to the average cine-goer, who is otherwise baffled by unheard of films that figure in the National Film Festival, which goes by censor certification rather than theatrical releases.

The other members of the feature film jury were scribe Ratnottama Sengupta, National School of Drama’s Ram Gopal Bajaj, actress P. Gautami, singer Sreelekha Mukherjee, filmmakers Kalpana Agarwal, Saeed Mirza, Mohan, G.V.G. Raju, K. Ravindranathan Nair, T.S. Nagabharana, K.Janaki Ram, Leslie Carvalho, Moloy Goswami, Arun Kaul, and Sanjiv Bhargava. The other members of the non-feature jury were Malay Bhattacharya, O.K. Johny, Meera Dewan and senior film journalist Rashmi Doraiswamy. The remaining members of the writing on cinema jury were Siladitya Sen and Deepa Gehlot, who has earlier won the best film critic award.