Munnabhai bags four national awards

The Best Feature Film award has been bagged by Priyanandanan-directed Malayalam film Pulijanmam. The Best Actor award went to veteran Bengali film actor Soumitra Chatterjee for the Bengali film Podokkhep and the Best Actress award was bagged by Tamil actor Priyamani for Paruthi Veeran.

There has been no announcement on the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for outstanding contribution to Indian Cinema.

In the popular cinema category, Madhur Bhandarkar won the Best Director award for his film Traffic Signal and Anupam Kher starrer Khosla Ka Ghosla won the award for the Best Hindi film. This is Bhandarkar’s third national award — he had bagged the award for his films Chandni Bar and Page 3 earlier.

Prabhavalkar who won the best supporting actor award for Lage Raho Munnabhai also won yet another award for the same category for his Marathi film Shevri.

Konkona Sen Sharma bagged the Best Supporting Actress award for her role in Vishal Bharadwaj’s Omkara, while Bhardwaj himself received the Special Jury Award. The Best Singer (male) and Best Singer (female) awards were awarded to Gurdas Mann and Aarti Annklekar Tikekar respectively.

The Nargis Dutt award for the Best Feature Film on National Integration was given to Kallarali Hoovagi — a movie based on a novel written by BL Venu.

Actor-turned-director Amol Palekar bagged the award for Best Feature Film (English) for his movie Quest that deals with homosexuality. The Best Feature Film on Family Welfare went to Karutha Pakshikal (Malayalam) and Faltu (Bengali).

In the non-feature film category, the Best Film Award went to Bishar Blues by Amitabh Chakravarty.

The Best Feature Film on Social Issues was bestowed upon the Telugu movie Hope that discussed the issue of students committing suicides on failing to meet parental expectations. The Best Film on Children’s issues award went to Telugu movie Care of Footpath and the...