Samar was adjudged the best feature film of the year while Dr Baba Saheb Ambedkar bagged the best English feature film award besides claiming the best actor award for Mammooty, who played the lead role. The other films recommended by a 12-member feature film jury headed by U R Ananthamurthy are Kaarvan (Hindi) by Pankaj Butalia, Kairee (Hindi) by Amol Palekar, Malli (Tamil) by Santosh Sivan, Jvanaprastham (Malayalam) by Shaji N Karun, Paromitaar ek din (Bengali) by Aparna Sen, Kanooru Heggadithi (Kannada) by Girish Karnad, Asookh (Bengali) by Rituparno Ghosh, Biswaprakash (Oriya) by Susant Misra, Pokhi(Assamese) by Jahnu Barua, Atmiyo swajan (Bengali) by Raja Sen, Shaheed Uddham Singh (Punjabi) by Chitraath and Janani (Malayalam) by T Rajeevnath.