Bollywood sweeps film awards, but south takes the cake

Hindi films have swept the National Film Awards for 2007, announced in the capital on Monday, grabbing awards in 16 of the 28 categories in the feature film section. But the state making the most movies — Andhra Pradesh — failed to win any award.

And the best film award went to Tamil film Kanchivaram. Prakash Raj of the same movie was adjudged best actor. Umashree of Kannada film Gulabi Talkies was declared the best actress. Bollywood hit Chak De! India won the best popular film award for providing wholesome entertainment.

Amir Khan’s Taare Zameen Par grabbed the best film on family welfare award. Shankar Mahadevan was adjudged best male playback singer for the same film while Prasoon Joshi got the best lyrics award. Sharad Goekar of Marathi film Tingya beat Taare Zameen Par’s child prodigy Darsheel Safary for the Best Child Actor award.
Jab We Met fetched Shreya Ghosal the best female singer award. It is also the best choreographed film.

Farah Khan’s Om Shanti Om received the award for best art direction for creating authentic film settings of the 1970s.

Hindi film Frozen won the Indira Gandhi Award for Best First Film of a director (Shivajee Chadrabhushan) and best cinematography award. Dharm won the Nargis Dutt Award for best feature film on national integration. Antardwandwa was adjudged the best film on social issues, Foto the best children’s film, Gandhi My Father selected for the special jury award, best screenplay and best supporting actor (Darshan Jariwala), and 1971 the best feature film in Hindi, besides being selected for the best audiography award.

Jury chairperson for feature films Sai Paranjpye said films from West Bengal and Kerala, usually very rich,  were disappointing this time. She also observed that Indian films were quite verbose. “Quite a few films with good intent were disqualified because of repetition in theme.”