Context

• The 68th National Film Awards 2022 were announced recently, for films that released in 2020; the Awards had been delayed by two years due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

About 68th National Film Awards 2022

• Tamil film ‘Soorarai Pottru’ has won in five categories: Best Feature Film, Best Actor for Suriya, Best Actress for Aparna Balamurali, Best Music Direction (Score) for G V Prakash Kumar, and Best Original Screenplay for Sudha Kongara, who also directed the film.
• Suriya shares his Award with Bollywood actor Ajay Devgn, who has won for his role in ‘Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior’. The film has also won the award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment.

  

• Sachidanandan K R has won the Best Direction Award for the Malayalam film ‘Ayyappanum Koshiyum’ and Madonne Ashwin has won the Best Debut Film of a Director Award for the Tamil film ‘Mandela’.
• This time, no award was given for Best Critic. The Best Book on Cinema went to Kishwar Desai’s ‘The Longest Kiss’, which is about Devika Rani, often called “The First Lady of Indian Cinema”.

What are the National Film Awards?

• The National Film Awards “aim at encouraging the production of films of aesthetic & technical excellence and social relevance”, according to the Directorate of Film Festivals of the Union Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The Awards also aim to increase appreciation of different cultures and communities across India, thus promoting unity and integrity. They are presented by the President of India each year for the films of the preceding year.
• First given out in 1954, they were called the ‘State Awards’ and were limited to recognising the best films from a dozen regional languages. It was in 1968 that separate awards for artists and technicians were given. Nargis won the inaugural Award for Best Actress, for her performance as a schizophrenia patient in ‘Raat Aur Din’, while Uttam Kumar won the Best Actor award for both ‘Antony Firingee’ and ‘Chiriyakhana’.
• The Awards were officially designated Urvashi Award and Bharat Award respectively. The actress Sharada who won the Award three times (for ‘Thulabharam’, ‘Swayamvaram’, and ‘Nimajjanam’) came to be known as “Urvashi Sharada”.
• There are three sections of the Awards now: ‘Features’, ‘Non-Features’. and ‘Best Writing on Cinema’. The winning entries in the ‘Features’ and ‘Non-Features’ sections are selected on the basis of “cinematic achievements”. The ‘Best Writing on Cinema’ Awards are given with the aim to encourage the “study and appreciation of cinema as an art form”.

Who selects the winners?

• According to the Directorate of Film Festivals, the jury deciding the winners comprises “persons distinguished in the field of cinema, other allied arts and humanities”.

Who have been the biggest winners of the Awards?

• Shabana Azmi holds the record for having won the Best Actress Award five times, including three back-to-back wins for ‘Arth’, ‘Khandhar’ and ‘Paar’, from 1982-84. Bengali actresses Indrani Halder and Rituparna Sengupta are the only two awardees to be honoured for the same film, Rituparno Ghosh’s ‘Dahan’ (1997).
• Six of the legendary Satyajit Ray’s films have won Best Feature Film in four different decades: ‘Pather Panchali’ (1955), ‘Apur Sansar’ (1959), ‘Charulata’ (1964), ‘Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne’ (1968), ‘Seemabaddha’ (1971), and ‘Agantuk’ (1991).
• Seven films starring Shah Rukh Khan in the leading role have won the award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment, the most for any actor; however, he himself has never won the Award.

Source: IE

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