Amid confusion and political outrage, 2025 National Film Awards highlight cinema that matters

The films, Ullozhukku, Pookkaalam and Parking, share no similarity on the surface. But they speak in unison about something essential: The understanding that a plot is only ever as powerful as the people who carry it. In Ullozhukku, Urvashi plays a grieving mother whose pain is subterranean, slow and unrelenting. Her performance is the flood that the story cannot drain. M S Bhaskar leans into the stubbornness of an ordinary man in Parking with such layered conviction that even his silences feel confrontational. And Vijayaraghavan in Pookkaalam gives us a face aged by both time and tenderness. His presence doesn’t just deepen the film’s mood; it alters its moral temperature.

These are not ornamental roles. They are the emotional spine of their films.

What makes their recognition even more compelling is that it isn’t new. In Malayalam and Tamil cinema, supporting characters are not a scaffolding for stars. They are part of the structure. Often, they are the reason a story breathes at all. This is a culture that has long written with a generosity toward its characters. From Sankaradi and Thilakan to KPAC Lalitha and Sukumari, supporting actors have not existed to flank the hero but to inhabit the world fully.

Tamil cinema too has extended the same reverence to performers like Manorama, Delhi Ganesh and Vadivukkarasi. They were actors who could recalibrate an entire scene with a single shift of tone. They weren’t merely present; they carried the narrative’s quiet urgency, with a clarity of presence.

Thilakan, with his volcanic restraint, could distil authority into a single gesture. Sankaradi, with his laconic delivery and dry intelligence, lent realism to even the most outlandish situations. Oduvil Unnikrishnan’s face always held a controlled emotion that deepened every silence and brightened every smile.

KPAC Lalitha’s portrayals simmered with suppressed fury or unspoken affection, depending on what the frame asked of her. Sukumari moved between tones like a veteran classical musician, switching between menace, maternal care and comic timing with disarming ease.

Manorama brought mischief and vulnerability to even her most minor roles. Nagesh, for all his physical humour, never chased the gag. He layered his comedy with anxiety, class discomfort, and even desperation. Delhi Ganesh, Vadivukkarasi and Nasser, always understated, built full lives for characters who often entered and exited the story within minutes.

They didn’t serve the leads. They served the world with the film they built.

That tradition continues today, sharpened by a newer wave of screenwriters and directors who refuse to flatten characters into clichés. They trust the audience to stay with silences, to read expressions that aren’t underlined by music. And they give their supporting cast room to inhabit those emotional spaces fully.

This is why these National Awards wins feel like an affirmation of a way of making cinema. A reminder that the most potent moments often belong not to the most visible face, but to the one with the most lived-in silence.

Even Janki Bodiwala’s win for Vash (later remade as Shaitaan in Hindi), the fourth in this category, sits within this quiet continuum. A younger performer from Gujarati cinema, her inclusion rounds out a selection that leans more toward narrative integrity than celebrity hierarchy.

Of course, there were other headlines this year. Controversial choices, omissions that stung, selections that sparked rightful confusion. But amid that noise, these four awards feel like a restoration of faith. As if the jury, however imperfectly, remembered what gives cinema its staying power. They recognised where the story rests its weight. Not always on the shoulders of heroes, but often on the backs of characters who have no names on the poster.

To honour them is to honour a style of cinema that privileges depth over display. And in doing so, perhaps, we catch a glimpse of what might still be possible.

akhil.pj@expressindia.com