National Film Awards: Suriya's Tamil film Soorarai Pottru wins big
Tamil OTT superhit Soorarai Pottru has landed a bagful of awards, including Best Feature Film, Best Actor and Best Actress, at the 68th National Film Awards for 2020, announced on Friday, July 22.
The second big winner of the day was Ajay Devgn starrer Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior, which bagged the awards for Best Actor for Devgn and Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment.
Devgn shared the Best Actor award with Suriya, who got it for Soorarai Pottru. The Tamil film, directed by Sudha Kongara, is inspired by the life and work of Air Deccan founder Captain GR Gopinath. The film’s heroine Aparrna Balamurali bagged the Best Actress award.
Best Actor award is shared between Ajay Devgan for Tanhaji: The Unsung Warrior and Suriya for Soorarai Pottru (Tamil). @ianuragthakur @MIB_India#NationalFilmAwards pic.twitter.com/DPA9BTTz2u
— Prasar Bharati News Services & Digital Platform (@PBNS_India) July 22, 2022
Manoj Muntashir won the award for Best Lyrics for the Hindi movie Saina.
Ahead of the announcement, the chairperson and other jury members called on the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur, who congratulated all the winners and said 2020 was a particularly difficult year for films due to the COVID pandemic, yet the nominations consisted of great works.
Also Read: Kaduva review: Prithviraj’s film no match for Kuruvachan’s real-life heroics
Among other wins were Madhya Pradesh, which got the Most Film Friendly State award. Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh also got Special Mentions.
Among books, The Longest Kiss by Kishwar Desai won the Best Book on Cinema award, while the Malayalam book MT Anunahvangalude Pusthakam and Odia book Kali Paine Kalira Cinema won Special Mentions.
Read the full list of awards here
Among the non-feature film awards, the prize for best narration went to Shobha Tharoor Sreenivasan for Rhapsody of Rains- Monsoons of Kerala. The best music direction award went to Vishal Bhardwaj for Will Die there only (in Hindi). The best cinematography award went to Nikhil S Praveen for Talking Plow (in Malayalam).
The best direction award was given to director RV Ramani for Oh that’s Bhanu (in English, Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi).
The best investigative film award went to The Saviour : Brig.Pritam Singh, produced by Dr Paramjeet Singh Kattu.
The best film on social issues was shared between Justice Delayed but Delivered (in Hindi) and Three Sisters (in Bengali).
The late Malayalam filmmaker Sachidanandan KR was posthumously named the Best Director for AK Ayyappanum Koshiyum.
The 10-member jury was headed by Hindi filmmaker Vipul Shah. The awards were announced by jury member Dharam Gulati.
Other awards winners
- BEST EDITING – Anadi Athaley (for Borderlands )
- BEST AUDIOGRAPHY – Ajit Singh Rathore ( for Pearl of the Desert)
- BEST EXPLORATION /ADVENTURE FILM – Mukesh Sharma ( for Wheeling the Ball)
- BEST EDUCATIONAL FILM – Nandan (for Dreaming of words)
- BEST ENVIRONMENT FILM – Dip Bhuyan ( for Manas and people)
- BEST SCIENCE and Technology Film – Akanksha Sood Singh (for On the Brink Season 2 -Bats)
- BEST ARTS and CULTURE FILM – Girish Kasaravalli ( for Naadada Navaneeta DR PT Venkateshkumar)
- BEST BIOGRAPHICAL FILM – Haobam Paban Kumar (for Pabung Syam )
- BEST  ETHNOGRAPHIC FILM – Rajendra Janglay ( for Rhythm of Mandal)
- Best Telugu Film – Colour Photo
