The 15th

National Film Awards The National Film Awards is the most prominent film award ceremony in India. Established in 1954, it has been administered, along with the International Film Festival of India and the Indian Panorama, by the Indian government's Directorat ...

, presented by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India to felicitate the best of

Indian Cinema The Cinema of India consists of motion pictures produced in India, which had a large effect on world cinema since the late 20th century. Major centers of film production across the country include Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Ko ...

released in 1967. Ceremony took place at

Vigyan Bhavan Vigyan Bhawan ("science building") is a premier conference centre of the Government of India in New Delhi. Built in 1956, over the years it has been the venue of conferences of national and international stature, seminars and award ceremonies at ...

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

on 25 November 1968 and awards were given by then

President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Murmu ...

Zakir Hussain Zakir Hussain ( ur, , link=no) is the name of: * Zakir Husain (politician), an Indian politician and former president of India * Zakir Hussain (actor), Bollywood actor * Zakir Hussain (field hockey) (1934–2019), Pakistani field hockey player * ...

. With 15th National Film Awards, format of awards has been changed, which includes introduction of new awards and categorisation. Unlike earlier, films then categorised into feature films and short films. Feature films awards were continued with All India Awards and Regional Awards but couple of more awards were introduced at the all India level to honour artists and technicians. Major awards introduced for feature films starting with 15th National Film Awards includes awards for Best Actor,

Best Actress Best Actress is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organisations, festivals, and people's awards to leading actresses in a film, television series, television film or play. The first Best Actress awar ...

, Best Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Music Direction, Best Playback Singer of the Year and

Best Screenplay Best or The Best may refer to: People * Best (surname), people with the surname Best * Best (footballer, born 1968), retired Portuguese footballer Companies and organizations * Best & Co., an 1879–1971 clothing chain * Best Lock Corporatio ...

. Starting 15th National Film Awards, Short films had their own share of awards which introduced seven new awards for various types/genre of short films made in the country, including Best Promotional Film, Best Educational / Instructional Film, Best Film on Social Documentation etc. Certificate of Merit in all the categories is discontinued with 15th National Film Awards, which also led to discontinuation of second and third film/documentary, again in all the categories, except Second Best Feature Film.

Juries

Six different committees were formed based on the film making sectors in India, mainly based in

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

and

Madras Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...

along with the award categories. Another committee for all India level was also formed which included some of the members from regional committee. For 15th National Film Awards, central committee was headed by R. K. Nehru. * Jury Members: Central ** R. K. Nehru (

Chairperson The chairperson, also chairman, chairwoman or chair, is the presiding officer of an organized group such as a board, committee, or deliberative assembly. The person holding the office, who is typically elected or appointed by members of the grou ...

)

Ammu Swaminathan Ammu Swaminathan or A. V. Ammakuti (22 April 1894 – 4 July 1978) was an Indian social worker and political activist during the Indian independence movement and a member of the Constituent Assembly of India. Early life Ammukutty Swaminadhan w ...

Adya RangacharyaArdhendu MukerjeeB. V. SingaracharyaRoshan Lal MalhotraSunder Lal Nahata

Jainendra Kumar Jainendra Kumar (2 January 1905 – 24 December 1988) was a 20th century Indian writer who wrote in Hindi. He wrote novels include ''Sunita'' and ''Tyagapatra''. He was awarded one of India's highest civilian honours, the Padma Bhushan in 1971. ...

Ali Sardar Jafri Ali Sardar Jafri (29 November 1913 – 1 August 2000) was an Indian writer of Urdu language. He was also a poet, critic and film lyricist. Biography Early life and education Ali Sardar Jafri was born in Balrampur, Uttar Pradesh, where he sp ...

M. Mujeeb * Jury Members: Documentary **

Padmaja Naidu Padmaja Naidu (17 November 1900 – 2 May 1975) was an Indian freedom fighter and politician who was the 4th Governor of West Bengal from 3 November 1956 to 1 June 1967. She was daughter of Sarojini Naidu. Early life Padmaja Naidu was born in H ...

(

)Muriel WasiJ. D. Singh R. S. SharmaLen Chatwin * Jury Members: Short Films **

Krishna Kriplani Krishna Kripalani (29 September 1907 – 27 April 1992) was an Indian freedom fighter, author and parliamentarian. He wrote a number of books on Rabindranath Tagore, Mahatma Gandhi and on Indian literature. Early life The son of Ramchand B. Krip ...

(

) Tara Ali BaigShiv S. Kapur

Ebrahim Alkazi Ebrahim Alkazi (18 October 1925 – 4 August 2020) was an Indian theatre director and drama teacher. A rigid disciplinarian, he instilled in his acting students an awe and reverence that they still carry with them, with several of them havin ...

Usha BhagatFali Bilimoria * Jury Regional: Bombay ** V. A. Naik (

)Aloo J. Chibber

Anant Kanekar Anant Atmaram Kanekar (1905–1980) was a Marathi writer from Maharashtra, India. He was born in Bombay on 2 December 1905. Education and career Kanekar finished his high school studies in 1923 at ''Chikitsak Samuha Shirolkar High School'' in ...

R. SrinivasanRam JoshiK. J. KhambattaBhanu Prasad PandyaPannalal MaheshwarySadashiv J. Row KaviBany Talwar * Jury Regional: Calcutta ** S. N. Ray (

)

Premendra Mitra Premendra Mitra (4 September 1904 – 3 May 1988)Samsad Bengali Charitabhidhan Vol.II edited Anjali Bose, Published by Sagitta Samsad, Kolkata, Edition January,2019,Page-240 was an Indian poet, writer and film director in the Bengali language. ...

Rita RayR. P. Gupta

Jamuna Baruah Jamuna Barua (10 October 1919 – 24 November 2005) was a leading Indian actress. Early life Jamuna was the fourth of the six daughters of Puran Gupta, a resident of a village near Agra, India. Each of the sisters was named after an Indian ...

Sachidananda Raut Ray Sachidananda Routray (13 May 1916 – 21 August 2004) was an Indian poet, novelist and short-story writer who wrote in Odia. He received Jnanpith Award, the highest literary award of India, in 1986. He was popularly known as Biplabi Kabi (''rev ...

Asim PalD. K. SircarDurgadas Mitra * Jury Regional: Madras ** C. R. Pattabhiraman (

) A. N. Krishna Rao

Devaki Gopidas Devaki Gopidas (1918-1973) was an Indian politician from Kerala. She was a Member of Parliament, representing Kerala in the Rajya Sabha the upper house of India's Parliament as a member of the Indian National Congress from 1962 - 1968. She was ...

K. SubramaniamS. K. Nayar

D. V. S. Raju Datla Venkata Suryanarayana Raju, better known as D. V. S. Raju (13 December 1928 – 13 November 2010) was an Cinema of India, Indian film producer known for his works in Telugu Cinema and Bollywood. He was instrumental in shifting the Telugu f ...

T. E. VasudevanV. C. SubburamanB. AnanthaswamiD. N. Rao

Awards

Awards were divided into feature films and non-feature films. President's Gold Medal for the All India Best Feature Film is now better known as

National Film Award for Best Feature Film The National Award for Best Feature Film is one of the categories in the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in India. It is one of sev ...

, whereas President's Gold Medal for the Best Documentary Film is analogous to today's

National Film Award for Best Non-Feature Film The National Film Award for Best Non-Feature Film is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organization set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. It is one of several awards ...

. For children's films, Prime Minister's Gold Medal is now given as

National Film Award for Best Children's Film The National Film Award for Best Children's Film is one of the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. It is one of several awards ...

. At the regional level, President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film is now given as National Film Award for Best Feature Film in a particular language. Certificate of Merit in all the categories is discontinued over the years.

Feature films

Feature films were awarded at All India as well as regional level. For 15th National Film Awards, a Bengali film ''

Hatey Bazarey ''Hatey Bazarey'' or ''Hate Bazare'' (Bengali: হাটে বাজারে; English: The Market Place) is a 1967 award-winning art film by noted Bengali director Tapan Sinha and produced Asim Dutta, the story revolves around the conflict betw ...

'' won the President's Gold Medal for the All India Best Feature Film, whereas a Bengali film ''

Chiriyakhana ''Chiriakhana'' or ''Chiriyakhana'' ( en, The Zoo) is a 1967 Indian Bengali-language crime thriller film, based on the story of the same name by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay, directed by Satyajit Ray starring Uttam Kumar as Byomkesh Bakshi. The scr ...

'' and two

Hindi films Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, refers to the film industry based in Mumbai, engaged in production of motion pictures in Hindi language. The popular term Bollywood, is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (fo ...

, ''

Hamraaz ''Hamraaz'' () is a 1967 Indian Bollywood suspense thriller film, produced and directed by B. R. Chopra and written by Akhtar-Ul-Iman. It stars Raaj Kumar, Sunil Dutt, Vimi, Mumtaz in lead roles, with Balraj Sahni, Madan Puri, Jeevan, If ...

'' and ''

Upkar ''Upkar'' () is a 1967 Indian Hindi film directed by Manoj Kumar. The film held the top spot at the box office in 1967. It was Manoj Kumar's directorial debut film. Then India's prime minister Lal Bahadur Shastri suggested Kumar to make a film b ...

'' won the maximum number of awards (two). Following were the awards given in each category:

All India Award

Following were the awards given:

Regional Award

The awards were given to the best films made in the regional languages of India. For feature films in Assamese,

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Gujarati Gujarati may refer to: * something of, from, or related to Gujarat, a state of India * Gujarati people, the major ethnic group of Gujarat * Gujarati language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by them * Gujarati languages, the Western Indo-Aryan sub- ...

Kashmiri Kashmiri may refer to: * People or things related to the Kashmir Valley or the broader region of Kashmir * Kashmiris, an ethnic group native to the Kashmir Valley * Kashmiri language, their language People with the name * Kashmiri Saikia Baruah ...

and

Oriya language Odia (, ISO: , ; formerly rendered Oriya ) is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in the Indian state of Odisha. It is the official language in Odisha (formerly rendered Orissa), where native speakers make up 82% of the population, and it is also ...

, President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film was not given. The producer and director of the film were awarded with 5,000 and a Silver medal, respectively.

Non-Feature films

Following were the awards given:

Short films

Awards not given

Following were the awards not given as no film was found to be suitable for the award: * Best Feature Film on National Unity and Emotional Integration * Prime Minister's Gold Medal for the Best Children's Film * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Assamese * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in English * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Oriya

References

External links

National Film Awards Archives

Official Page for Directorate of Film Festivals, India
{{National Film Awards National Film Awards (India) ceremonies 1968 film awards 1968 in Indian cinema