President presents 54th National Film Awards

After a long wait, the 54th National Film Awards for the year 2006 has been finally delivered by the President of India Mrs. Pratibha Patil at the the Vigyan Bhawan in the capital on Tuesday in the presence of Information and Broadcasting Minister Priyaranjan Dasmunsi.

The reason behind so much delay was the late announcement of nominations for 2006 amid a legal tussle in which it had been alleged that there was partiality in declaring the nominations. The matter went to the Supreme Court and finally the Apex Court announced the decision in favour of government and jury.

The list of the award winners was fast announced in June this year for 31 feature film categories and 22 non-feature film categories.

The National Film Award is considered as the most prestigious award for the film industry and Best Film for the year is considered as the top honour of that ceremony.

Malayalam film Pulijanmam (Directed by Priyanandan) bagged the top honour of Best Feature Film award and received a cash prize of Rs.2,50,000 and a golden peacock, while in Bollywood, popular film ‘Lage Raho Munna Bahi’ grabbed as many as four awards including the most popular movie of the year award.

Moreover, it has also received the Best Screenplay, Best Lyrics and Best Supporting Actor (Dilip Prabhavalkar for his role of virtual Mahatma Gandhi).

In the Hindi film section, ‘Khosala ka Ghosala’ bagged the ‘Best Feature Film in Hindi’ award while Madhur Bhandarkar won the best direction award (for the third time) for his film ‘Traffic Signal’- based on dwellers of the street in which a protagonist becomes the role model for the society. Earlier, Madhur had won National Awards for his film ‘Chandni Bar’ (2001) and ‘Page 3’ (2005).

The Indira Gandhi Award for the Best First Film of a Director went jointly to Ekantham (Malayalam), directed by Madhukaithapuram, and Kabul Express, directed by Kabir Khan.

Bengali Film Actor Soumitra Chatterjee won the Best Actor Award for his film ‘Podokkhep’ while Tamil Actress Priyamani won the Best Actress award for her film ‘Poruthiveeran’.

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

Here is the list of the awards:

Best Film Pulijanmam

Best Hindi Film Khosla Ka Ghosla

Most Popular Film Lage Raho Munnabhai

Best Director Madhur Bhandarkar (Traffic Signal)

Best Actor Soumitra Chatterjee(Podokkhep)

Best Actress Priyamani (Poruthiveeran)

Best Supporting Actor Dilip Prabhawalkar (Gandhi in ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’)

Best Supporting Actress Konkona Sen (Omkara)

Best Song Lage Raho Munnabhai

Best Screenplay Lage Raho Munnabhai

Best Lyrics Lage Raho Munnabhai

Jury Award Vishal Bharadwaj (Omkara)

Cameraman Gautam Ghosh (Yatra)