The 68th National Film Awards were announced on Friday evening and were greeted as they always are – with an outpouring of love, congratulatory messages and heart emojis for the films, actors, directors, technicians and singers who won, and shock and tears for films that were ignored.
This year, too, the annual ritual repeated itself. The many powerful and worthy films that were missing from the list were duly noted, including director Prateek Vats’ Hindi feature, Eeb Allay Ooo!, and Pebbles, P.S. Vinothraj’s directorial debut film.
Eeb Allay Ooo! is the story of a migrant worker whose daily job is to wear a money suit and scare away langurs from public buildings in Lutyens Delhi. Pebbles, a visually stark and stunning Tamil film, is based on a real-life incident involving the director’s sister.
Both the films have won awards and accolades at international film festivals and Pebbles, in fact, was India’s official entry to this year’s Oscars. So its absence in India’s own list of the best films of 2020 is baffling.
For several years now, governments and their juries have handed out at least some of the Swarna and Rajat Kamals (Golden and Silver Lotus) to their favorites. That has, naturally, meant a steady decline in the credibility of the national film awards. But both, the inclusions and omissions, are an interesting testimony of not just the artistic and creative merits of India’s cinema, but also of how much Indian politicians depend on it.
This year the focus of the awards was decidedly not on Bollywood, but on Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu cinema. That is a course correction which was long overdue.
Soorarai Pottru (Praise The Brave), a Tamil melodrama written and directed by Sudha Kongara (of Saala Khadoos fame), has bagged the five top awards – best film, actor, actress, screenplay and background score, only one of which it shares with Bollywood.
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The best actor award has gone to Tamil superstar Suriya for Soorarai Pottru and to Ajay Devgn for his performance in and as Tanhaji.
Apart from Devgn, his film Tanhaji, and the unknown-till-now Toolsidas Junior, Bollywood is mostly missing from this year’s list.
Director Mridul Mahendra’s Toolsidas Junior, starring Sanjay Dutt and Rajiv Kapoor (who passed away last year), has received the award for best Hindi film. Inspired by the real life story of a father, a son and a snooker challenge, Toolsidas Junior is a sweet but terribly mediocre film. It’s certainly not the best Hindi film of the year. But then, neither is Ajay Devgn’s performance.
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