CHENNAI: The 70th National Film Awards announced on Friday reflected the continuing hot streak of South Indian cinema since last year. Malayalam film Aattam won the Best Feature Film award, Rishab Shetty bagged the Best Actor award for Kantara while Nithya Menen (Thiruchitrambalam) shared the Best Actress award with Manasi Parekh (The Kutch Express).
Ponniyin Selvan I won several key awards, including Best Music Direction-Background Score (AR Rahman), Best Sound Design (Anand Krishnamoorthy), and Best Cinematography (Ravi Varman). This is AR Rahman’s seventh National Award, the most for any music director in India. In the crew awards section, Jani and Sathish Krishnan won the Best Choreography Award for their work in Thiruchitrambalam (Megam Karukatha). Films like KGF Chapter 2, Brahmastra Part I, and Fouja also won awards in key categories.
Apart from the Best Film award, Aattam won the Best Editing award (Mahesh Bhuvanend) and Best Screenplay award (Anand Ekarshi). The latter was shared with the Hindi film Gulmohar.
Responding to the win, Aattam director Anand Ekarshi said, “It feels surreal to even think that our film has won among 300 submissions... To win three awards at the national level is quite overwhelming.” On the other hand, Anand Krishnamoorthy, who won the Best Sound Design Award for Ponniyin Selvan I revealed that he was not aware of the winners list being announced on Friday.
He said, “I’m quite thrilled about the award. There were no expectations but as a team, we knew that we had done good work. There was a time during the post-production during which AR Rahman sir and I took both of our materials and worked together. The working process with Rahman sir was very enjoyable, so the fact that both background music and sound design have been recognised makes us all the more happy.”
Brahmastra Part I has won in three categories: Best Music Direction (Pritam), Best Playback Singer (Arijit Singh for Kesariya), and Best Film in AVGC.
Arijit Singh shared the Best Playback Singer award with Bombay Jayashree for her work in Saudi Vellakka (Chaayum Veyil). Best Director was given to Sooraj Barjatya and Best Actor in a Supporting Role went to Neena Gupta, for their respective works in Uunchai.
South films win key awards
Neena Gupta shared her award with Pavan Raj Malhotra for his work in Fouja. It is interesting to note that apart from Hindi, Tamil, Malayalam, and Kannada films, Haryanvi film Fouja also won key awards.
The Gujarati drama Kutch Express won the Best Feature Film Award for promoting national, social, and environmental values. With films like KGF Chapter 2 and Kantara, the Kannada film industry bagged several awards this year. Apart from Rishab Shetty’s Best Actor win, Kantara also won Best Film providing wholesome entertainment. Along with the Best Kannada Film award, KGF Chapter 2 also won Best Action Direction by Anbariv.
Prashanth Neel, the director of KGF Chapter 2, said, “I am truly honoured by this Award. My deepest gratitude goes to Yash for his extraordinary performance and to the entire team and the crew for their relentless dedication.”
(With inputs from A Sharaddha, Prashanth Vallavan, Vignesh Madhu, Jayabhuvaneshwari B)