VIJAYAWADA: The State Government on Tuesday announced Nandi Film Awards for the years 2014, 15 and 2016. Balakrishna-starrer Legend, SS Rajamouli’s Baahubali-The Beginning and the much acclaimed Pelli Choopulu won in the best feature film category for the years 2014, 15 and 2016 respectively. Balakrishna bagged the best actor award for his performance in Legend, Mahesh Babu for Srimanthudu and Jr NTR for Janatha Garage.
Baahubali, which attracted worldwide attention, won over a dozen awards, including best director (Rajamouli), best villain (Rana), best supporting actor (Ramyakrishna), and best music director (Keeravani). Legend came second with six awards including best actor and director (Boyapati Srinu).
In the best actress category, Anjali won the award for her role in Geetanjali (2014), Anushka for Size Zero (2015) and Rithu Verma for Pelli Choopulu (2016).
This is the second time after state bifurcation, that the State government has announced Nandi awards. On March 1, this year, the government had announced awards for 2012 and 2013. However, the date for the presentation of the awards has not been fixed yet as the government wants to organise a single function to distribute the awards for all the five years.
After calling on Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, jury members Jeevitha Rajasekhar, P Babu Rao, Giribabu and Balakrishna announced the winners.The NTR National awards were also announced for Kamal Hasan, Rajinikanth and K Raghavendra Rao. Veteran actor Krishnam Raju won the Raghupathy Venkaiah award for 2014, Eeswari for 2015 and Chiranjeevi for 2016.