The 3rd

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 ...

, then known as State Awards for Films, 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 the year 1955. 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 September 1956 and awards were given by

Prime Minister of India The prime minister of India (IAST: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and their chosen Council of Ministers, despite the president of India being the nominal head of the ...

Jawaharlal Nehru Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat— * * * * and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...

Juries

Three 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 ...

. Another committee for all India level was also formed which included some of the members from regional committee. For 3rd National Film Awards, central committee was headed by

C. D. Deshmukh Sir Chintaman Dwarakanath Deshmukh, CIE, ICS (14 January 1896 – 2 October 1982) was an Indian civil servant and the first Indian to be appointed the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India in 1943 by the British Raj authorities. He subsequent ...

. * Jury Members: Central **

(

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 ...

)M. D. Bhat N. K. SiddhantaW. S. Krishnaswami Nayudu

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 ...

Sucheta Kriplani

Ramdhari Singh Dinkar Ramdhari Singh (23 September 1908 – 24 April 1974), known by his pen name Dinkar, was an Indian Hindi and Maithili language poet, essayist, freedom fighter, patriot and academic. He emerged as a poet of rebellion as a consequence of his ...

Syed NurullahArdhendu MukerjeeD. Ramanujam Sudhir Mukerjee * Jury Regional: Bombay ** M. D. Bhat (

) Pandit Narendra SharmaP. N. Arora

Jayant Desai Jayant Desai (born Jayantilal Jhinabhai Desai, 28 February 1909 – 19 April 1976) was an Indian film director and producer. After graduating from the University of Bombay Desai joined Ranjit Studios in 1929 where he directed numerous films inc ...

M. R. Palande

Jagdish Sethi Jagdish Sethi was an Indian actor and director. Filmography Actor Director External links

* 20th-century Indian film directors Indian male film actors Year of birth missing Year of death missing {{India-film-actor-stub ...

* Jury Regional: Calcutta ** N. K. Siddhanta (

)

Sabita Devi Sabita Devi (1914–1965) was a Hindi film actress in Indian cinema. She is stated to be one of the "prominent" leading ladies of the "pioneering era" of Indian cinema along with Mehtab, Bibbo, Durga Khote, Gohar, Devika Rani and Seeta Devi. ...

S. K. Mukerjee

Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay (23 July 1898 – 14 September 1971) was an Indian novelist who wrote in the Bengali language. He wrote 65 novels, 53-story-books, 12 plays, 4 essay-books, 4 autobiographies, 2 travel stories and composed several songs. ...

Kalidas Nag Kalidas Nag ( bn, Kalidas Nag; 16 January 1892 – 9 November 1966) was an Indian historian, writer and parliamentarian. He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 1952 and served till 1954. Early years Kalidas was born to Babu Matilal Nag. He ma ...

Sudhir Mukerjee * Jury Regional: Madras ** W. S. Krishnaswami Nayudu (

)Manjubhashini

Mu. Varadarajan Also known as Mu. Va. and Varatharasanar, was a Tamil language, Tamil scholar, author and academic from Tamil Nadu, India. He was born in an aristocratic Tuluva Vellala family near Vellore. He was a prolific writer whose published works include ...

R. SubbaraoA. RamaiahA. Aiyapan

V. K. Gokak Vinayaka Krishna Gokak (9 August 1909 – 28 April 1992), abbreviated in Kannada as Vi. Kru. Gokak, was an Indian historian and writer in the Kannada language and a scholar of English and Kannada literatures. He was the fifth writer to be hono ...

S. M. Naidu

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 3rd National Film Awards, ''

Pather Panchali ''Pather Panchali'' (; ) is a 1955 Indian Bengali (language), Bengali-language Drama (film and television), drama film written and directed by Satyajit Ray and produced by the Government of West Bengal. It is an adaptation of Bibhutibhushan Ba ...

'', a Bengali film by a debutant director

Satyajit Ray Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. One of the greatest auteurs of fil ...

won the President's Gold Medal for the All India Best Feature Film. Following were the awards given:

All India Award

For 3rd National Film Awards, none of the films were awarded from Children's films category as no film was found to be suitable.

Regional Award

With 3rd National Film Awards, new award category was introduced for the feature films made in

Assamese language Assamese (), also Asamiya ( ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken mainly in the north-east Indian state of Assam, where it is an official language, and it serves as a ''lingua franca'' of the wider region. The easternmost Indo-Iranian language, ...

. This newly introduced category includes President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Assamese and Certificate of Merit for second and third best film, although former was not given as no film was found suitable for the award. The awards were given to the best films made in the regional languages of India. For 3rd National Film Awards, President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film was not given in Assamese,

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

Hindi Hindi (Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been de ...

Kannada Kannada (; ಕನ್ನಡ, ), originally romanised Canarese, is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by the people of Karnataka in southwestern India, with minorities in all neighbouring states. It has around 47 million native s ...

and

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, nativ ...

language; instead Certificate of Merit was awarded in each particular language.

Non-Feature films

Non-feature film awards were given for the documentaries made in the country. Following were the awards given:

Documentaries

Awards not given

Following were the awards not given as no film was found to be suitable for the award: * 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 Bengali * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Hindi * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Kannada * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Malayalam * President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Tamil

References

External links

National Film Awards Archives

Official Page for Directorate of Film Festivals, India
{{National Film Awards National Film Awards (India) ceremonies 1956 in Indian cinema 1956 film awards