Adoor's 'Oru Pennun Randu Annum' sweeps state film awards

Thiruvananthapuram, June 3 (IANS) Internationally acclaimed Malayalam filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan's 'Oru Pennun Randu Annum' swept the State Film Awards winning five main awards. He says it will lure the people to theatres to see his movie.

Adoor bagged the best director, best film and best screenplay award for 'Oru Pennun Randu Annum'. While Praveena won the second best actress award for her performance in the film and the best sound recordist trophy also went to 'Oru Pennun Randu Annum'.

'This recognition is really good and I am happy that this award would bring in the crowd to see the film,' said Adoor.

The State Film Awards 2008 were announced Wednesday by Culture Minister M.A. Baby.

Girish Kasaravalli, chairman of the jury and Kannada filmmaker, said that the decision was unanimous in most of the awards. But he feels the quality of Malayalam films has gone down.

'There has been a drop in the quality of the Malayalam films. The situation was not bad earlier,' he said.

The best actor award went to director-turned-actor Lal for the film 'Thalapavu', which is actor Madhupal's directorial debut.

Priyanka won the best actress award for her role in the film 'Vilapangalku Appuarthu'.

Incidentally, there were no awards for the children films, short fiction and documentary sections.

'The jury was of the opinion that the entries in the children and short fiction sections did not merit an award. Since there was only one entry in the documentary section, it was not considered,' said Baby.