A youth anthem that awakened an entire generation and a sunshine slice of life that brought the Mahatma back into our consciousness. That’s the power of Rang De Basanti and Lage Raho Munnabhai, nay, the power of Indian cinema — celebrated with much fanfare and flourish at the Hero Honda 13th Annual Star Screen Awards here last night.

The final tally: Rang De Basanti took home eight golden statuettes, while Lage Raho Munnabhai won five and Omkara four. Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s Lage Raho was hailed the Best Film while Rakeysh Mehra was declared Best Director for Rang De Basanti. Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor walked away with the top acting honours in the popular category for Krrish and Omkara respectively.

Chopra dedicated his Best Film award to his team and in a grand gesture called on Mehra to share the spotlight with his Munnabhai team. “Great cinema is possible only if you have a great team, so let’s celebrate the team spirit,” he said.

Mehra, on his part, recalled “when we started out, there were no takers for the script of Range De Basanti and now it’s no longer our film. It’s the people’s film.”

Kapoor dedicated her first Screen honour to her director Vishal Bharadwaj, sister Karisma Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor.

Interestingly, Bharadwaj’s Omkara that was much criticised for its excessive use of cuss words ended up winning three of the four music awards. Bharadwaj won for Best Music Director, Gulzar for Best Lyrics for Beedi and Sunidhi Chauhan for Best Playback Singer (Female), again, for Beedi. Shaan won the Best Playback Singer (Male) award for Chaand Sifarish from Fanna.

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