With Usthad Hotel, the Malayalam film industry now has three national awards for ‘best popular film for wholesome entertainment’ in its kitty. This year’s accolade comes to Kerala after a gap of two decades, as the last time the Malayalam cine industry clinched the prestigious award was in 1993 when Fazil’s ‘Manichitrathazhu’ shared it with the Hindi film ‘Darr’. Later when the hit flick was remade as Apatmitra (Kannada), Chandralekha (Tamil and Telugu), Rajmohol (Bengali) and Bhool Bhulaiyya (Hindi), the movies proved to be a huge success.
But even before ‘Manichitrathazhu,’ the ‘wholesome entertainment’ award came to Malayalam cinema through the musical hit ‘Sargam’, directed by Hariharan. During the 38 years since the inception of this award in 1974, a total of 36 films have won the honour, with 23 awards going to Hindi movies.
Five Tamil films, two each from Telugu and Bengali have also won the award along with the silent movie Pushpak. There have been seven years when no film was selected for this award.