Film fare awards

CHENNAI, JULY 13 (INDIATIMES MOVIES) The stars descended in Chennai's Nehru Indoor Stadium to celebrate the hard work the film fraternity had put in the year gone by. With Mohanlal holding the Malayalam film industry flag high, actors like Tabu, Venkatesh, Junior NTR and Nayantara kept the Telegu film fans ecstatic, the Kannada film industry was represented by Vijay and Rashmi and it was Khushboo leading the path for Tamil cinema alongwith Madhavan, Karthik and Suriya.

While Telegu Film Happy Days walked away with the highest honours of 6 awards, it was music maestro, AR Rahman who had much to cheer about. Although missing from the action, Rahman collected his 22nd Filmfare award for best music, which is a record.

Tamil superstars Suriya and Karthik celebrated a double whammy when their father Siva Kumar was honoured for his lifetime achievement award and Karthik took the coveted best actor award for his film, Paruthiveeran. The best actor for a Malayalam film when to Mohanlal for his Paradesi. An emotional winner, Mohanlal said, "I consider Paradesi as a landmark in my filmi career." Kannada actor Vijay collected the best actor award for Duniya while Telegu superstar Junior NTR for hisYamadonga. In his inimitable style, Junior NTR said, "I think these are blessings from my grandfather, who is looking after me from top."

The South Filmfare awards always decides the fate of actresses and those who celebrated their success were Kannanda actress Rashmi for Duniya, Malayalam sensation Meena Jasmine for Orekadal and Tamil film's current favourite Priyamani for Paruthiveeran. Celebrating her third best actress Filmfare award was Telegu's Trisha. She received the award from none other than her co-star, Venkatesh. Trisha gushed, "I want to thank my fans, co-stars,director and most of all to the Telegu film industry for some of my best films till date."

The night was made special by several dance acts. A riot of colour, vigorous dance movements to thumping music and excited shrieks of fans were seen and heard as dancing divas like Rambha, Divya, Hansika, Mamika and Shreya Sarin took the stage by storm. Adding to the variety was a classical dance act by Shobhana and Vineet, who planned their own choreography. Also awarded for her contribution to Indian cinema was actress turned politician, Jaya Pradha.

But the night belonged to the dashing Maddy. As the anchor of the show, he was quick with his repartees, jubilant with the success of his friends and charming to his heroines. Getting special attention was the lissome Tabu, whom Maddy actually convinced to sing a line on stage.

Katrina Kaif, the sexiest woman as was declared by a popular fashion and style magazine, attended the event to add the Bollywood zing. A four hour spectacle that was special in its celebration of unity of four different film fraternities.