Baahubali best film; top honours for Amitabh, Kangana

Filmmaker S S Rajamouli’s southern magnum opus Baahubali: The Beginning was yesterday named the Best Feature Film.The 63rd National Film Awards announcement also saw Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Kangana Ranaut being bestowed with the Best Actor and Best Actress honours.Bachchan was lauded for his performance in Piku while Ranaut won the award for her dual act in Tanu Weds Manu Returns.Baahubali: The Beginning, which was a box office wonder, was lauded for being an “imaginative film, monumental by its production values and cinematic brilliance in creating a fantasy world on the screen” by filmmaker Ramesh Sippy, head of the Feature Film jury here.The film was even named for the award for Best Special Effects as these brought out the “emotional and dramatic upheavals of the story” in the movie.While some other marvels of southern cinema have found a place in the list of winners, Bollywood clearly stole the limelight with Bajrangi Bhaijaan winning the Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment; and Sanjay Leela Bhansali getting the Best Direction Award for the film which also won the Best Supporting Actress award for Tanvi Azmi.Another big Bollywood winner was Dum Laga Ke Haisha, which was named Best Hindi Film and also won the Best Female Playback Singer for Monali Thakur for a “delightful and soulful rendition of a song of love”, Moh moh ke dhaage. The use of “fresh, simple array of metaphors” in the song by Varun Grover was appreciated with Best Lyrics honour.A Special Jury Award went to Kalki Koechlin for her “realistic performance as a young woman afflicted with cerebral palsy” in Margarita, With A Straw, while Ritika Singh, a kick boxer-turned-actress, got a special mention for “gutsy performance of a boxer in the making”.Neeraj Ghaywan, whose unusual drama Masaan found critical acclaim nationally and internationally, was awarded the Indira Gandhi Award for Best Debut Film of a Director for “his perceptive approach to filmmaking in handling a layered story of people caught up in changing social and moral values”.As for regional cinema, actor-filmmaker Samuthirakan was given the Best Supporting Actor award for the Tamil drama Visaranaai, for which late Kishore T E’s editing work has also been lauded.Among the winners in the Best Music Direction category are: M Jayachandran won Best Song for Kaathirunnu kaathirunnu (Ennu Ninte Moideen) and Ilaiyaraaja won in the Background Score sub-category for Thaarai Thappattai.Malayalam film Nirnnayakam was named Best Film on Social Issues for “tackling a relevant and unaddressed issue of curtailing freedom of movement for the common man due to hartals and processions”; and Gaurav Menon won the Best Child Actor award for Ben.Meanwhile, Twitter was abuzz with users commenting and questioning the credibility of the awards, the process of which is co-ordinated by the Directorate of Film Festivals.“According to the National Awards, only people associated with Hindi cinema need recognition. Regional cinema doesn’t matter,” one user shared, while another wrote: “And how come all of the major winners are from Bollywood? Whatever happened to regional cinema? National awards seriously losing credibility.”Even director Gurvinder Singh, whose internationally acclaimed Punjabi film Chauthi Koot has been honoured with a National Film Award, has called the winners’ list a “complete farce”.“All the main awards have gone to commercial films. Baahubali, which is a totally crap film has got the Best Film award. I think it is a BJP award and not National Award,” Singh said.lBest regional films: Kothanodi (Assamese), Sankachil (Bengali), Thithi (Kannada), Enemy (Konkani), Pathemari (Malayalam), Ringan (Marathi), Chauthi Koot (Punjabi), Visaranai (Tamil), Kanche (Telugu), Priyamanasam (Sanskrit), Kima’s Lode Beyond the Class (Mizo), Pahada Ra Luha (Odiya), Mithila Makhan (Maithili), Eibusu Yaohanbiyu (Manipuri), The Head Hunter (Wancho), Satrangi (Haryanvi) and Onaatah (Khasi).