New Delhi: Bollywood films like Uri: The Surgical Strike’ ‘Andhadhun’, ‘Badhaai Ho’ and ‘Padman’ won big at the 66th National Film Awards, which were announced on Friday.
The announcement was made in a press conference by Rahul Rawail, chairperson, Feature Film Category; AS Kanal, chairperson, Non-Feature Film Category and Utpal Borpujari, chairperson, Best Writing on Cinema.
The chairpersons and other Jury Members earlier on Friday submitted a report on 66th National Film Awards to Union Minister Prakash Javadekar.
While Hindi movie ‘Padman’ was declared Best Film on Social Issues, Ayushmann Khurrana and Vicky Kaushal jointly received the Best Actor Award for their performances in ‘Andhadhun’ and ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’.
Aditya Dhar also won Best Director Award for ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’. The film that has Vicky playing an Indian Army officer also won the Sound Designer award (Bishwadeep Dipak Chatterjee). Best Music Director (Background Music) went to Shashwat Sachdev for ‘Uri: The Surgical Strike’.
‘Andhadhun’ was also a favourite at this year’s edition of National Film Awards. Apart from the Best Actor Award, the movie won Best Hindi Film award and honour for Screenplay writer (adapted): Sriram Raghavan, Arijit Biswas, Yogesh Chandekar, Hemant Rao and Pooja Ladha Surti.
‘Badhaai Ho’ bagged awards for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment and Best Supporting Actress (Surekha Sikri).
Akshay Kumar-starrer ‘Padman’ was declared Best Film on Social Issues. ‘Padmaavat’ won big, especially in the music categories. It bagged awards for Best Male Playback Singer (Arijit Singh for the song ‘Binte dil misriya mein’), Best Music Direction — Music Director (Songs): Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Best Choreography (Kruti Mahesh Madya and Jyoti Tomar for the song ‘Ghoomar’).
As for other top honours, Gujarati film ‘Hellaro’ was declared Best Feature Film winner, Keerthy Suresh was declared winner of Best Actress trophy for her performance in Telugu movie ‘Mahanati’ and Uttarakhand was declared the Most Film Friendly State.
Keerthy’s ‘film family’ celebrates Keerthy’s national award
Suresh Kumar, Maneka and Keerthy Suresh, often referred to as Kerala’s complete film family, were in celebration mood after Keerthy Suresh bagged the best actress national award for her role in the bilingual film ‘Mahanati’.
Keerthy’s father Suresh Kumar, one of Malayalam film industry’s top notch producers, said, “It’s something that we will cherish for a long time”.
“To be honest, we would have been disappointed had she not got this award, as it was such a beautiful performance by her. We were sure that she had done a great job as an actress and hence we did expect this would come,” he said.
Incidentally, Kumar’s wife Maneka was a hugely popular actress in the 1980s and acted in over 100 films before ending her career after marrying Kumar.
“She (Maneka) missed the national award by a whisker for her performance in the Malayalam film ‘Oppol’, when actor Balan K. Nair won the best actor award for his role in the same film. So our wait has finally ended with Keerthy winning it and hence it’s double joy for all of us,” said Kumar.
Starting off as a child artiste, Keerthy made it big with her debut lead role in director Priyadarshana’s film ‘Geethanjali’ in 2013. She has not looked back since then, acting not just in Malayali cinemas, but also in other South Indian films as well.
