The 53rd

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

Directorate of Film Festivals The Directorate of Film Festivals in India was an organisation that initiated and presented the International Film Festival of India, the National Film Awards and the Indian Panorama. Although the Directorate helped appoint members of the jur ...

, the organisation set up 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 2005. The selection process of 53rd National Film Awards began with the constitution of three Juries for feature film, non-feature film and best writing on cinema sections, which were declared on 28 July 2006.

B. Saroja Devi Bangalore Saroja Devi (born 7 January 1938) is an Indian actress who has acted in Kannada, Tamil, Telugu and Hindi films. She acted in around 200 films in over six decades. She is known by the epithets "''Abhinaya Saraswathi''" (Saraswathi of ...

, an yesteryear's actress, headed the feature film Jury, which had eleven other members. A documentary maker and Indian television personality

Siddharth Kak Siddharth Kak is an Indian documentary maker, television producer, and presenter, best known as the producer and presenter of Surabhi (1990–2001). Subsequently, Kak established the 'Surabhi Foundation' with the assistance of Ford Foundation ...

headed the six-member non-feature film Jury. The Jury for best writing on cinema was headed by veteran film critic

Khalid Mohamed Khalid Mohamed is an Indian journalist, editor, film critic, screenwriter and film director. He formerly worked for the ''Hindustan Times'' and was the lead editor for ''Filmfare'' magazine. He is the son of Hindi film actress Zubeida Begum, ...

. The final announcement of awards was much delayed due to various controversies associated with them. Actual announcement was done almost after the 14th months of its expected announcement, after

Delhi High Court The High Court of Delhi (IAST: ''dillī uchcha nyāyālaya'') was established on 31 October 1966, through the ''Delhi High Court Act, 1966'', with four judges, Chief Justice K. S. Hegde, Justice I. D. Dua, Justice H. R. Khanna and Justice S. ...

gave green signal to announce the awards in all categories. Awards were scheduled to be declared on 12 May 2006. Awards were announced by each committee chairpersons on 7 August 2007 and 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 a ...

, New Delhi on 14 September 2007 and awards were given

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 ...

Pratibha Patil Prathibha DeviSingh Patil (born 19 December 1934) is an Indian politician and lawyer who served as the 12th president of India spanning from 2007 to 2012. She is the first woman to become the president of India. A member of the Indian National ...

. It was also announced that prize money would be increased by five times and more categories would be added from next year.

Awards

Awards were divided into feature films, non-feature films and books written on Indian cinema.

Lifetime Achievement Award

Feature Films

Feature films were awarded at All India as well as regional level. For 53rd National Film Awards, a Bengali film, '' Kaalpurush'' won the

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 a

Hindi film 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 ...

, ''

Rang De Basanti ''Rang De Basanti'' () is a 2006 Indian drama film written, produced and directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, and co-written by Rensil D'Silva. The film features an ensemble cast consisting of Aamir Khan, Siddharth, R. Madhavan, Atul Kulkarni, ...

'', won the maximum number of awards (4). Following were the awards given in each category:

Juries

A committee headed by

was appointed to evaluate the feature films awards. Following were the jury members: * Jury Members **

(

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 ...

) P. H. VishwanathKatte Ramachandra B. S. Loknath

Seema Biswas Seema Biswas (born 14 January 1965) is an Indian actress who works in Hindi films and the theatre. She gained prominence after playing the role of Phoolan Devi in Shekhar Kapur's film '' Bandit Queen'' (1994), for which she won the National Fi ...

P. Sudershan **

Shyamaprasad Shyamaprasad (born 7 November 1960) is an Indian filmmaker, screenwriter and actor from Kerala. Career Shyamaprasad was born on 7 November 1960 at Palakkad, as the younger son of O. Rajagopal and Santhakumari. He was named after Shyama Prasad ...

Shyamali Deb BanerjeeMeena Debbarma Anwar AliIna PuriAshok Saran

All India Award

Following were the awards given:

= Golden Lotus Award

= Official Name: Swarna Kamal All the awardees are awarded with 'Golden Lotus Award (Swarna Kamal)', a certificate and cash prize.

= Silver Lotus Award

= Official Name: Rajat Kamal All the awardees are awarded with 'Silver Lotus Award (Rajat Kamal)', a certificate and cash prize.

Regional Awards

The award is given to best film in the regional languages in India. Best Feature Film in Each of the Language Other Than Those Specified In the Schedule VIII of the Constitution

Non-Feature Films

Films made in any Indian language shot on 16 mm, 35 mm or in a wider gauge or digital format and released on either film format or video/digital but certified by the Central Board of Film Certification as a documentary/newsreel/fiction are eligible for non-feature film section.

Juries

A committee headed by

was appointed to evaluate the non-feature films awards. Following were the jury members: * Jury Members **

(

)Chinmoya NathSangeeta Tamuli Kishore Dang

Kireet Khurana Kireet Khurana (born 25 October 1967) is an Indian filmmaker, animator, and ad-film director. Kireet joined his father's company to create '' Vartmaan''. In 2010, he made his debut with India's first feature film combining live-action and ...

A. B. Tripathi

Golden Lotus Award

Official Name: Swarna Kamal All the awardees are awarded with 'Golden Lotus Award (Swarna Kamal)', a certificate and cash prize.

Silver Lotus Award

Official Name: Rajat Kamal All the awardees are awarded with 'Silver Lotus Award (Rajat Kamal)' and cash prize.

Best Writing on Cinema

The awards aim at encouraging study and appreciation of cinema as an art form and dissemination of information and critical appreciation of this art-form through publication of books, articles, reviews etc.

Juries

A committee headed by

was appointed to evaluate the writing on Indian cinema. Following were the jury members: * Jury Members **

(

)Ratnottama SenguptaAmitabh Parashar

Golden Lotus Award

Official Name: Swarna Kamal All the awardees are awarded with 'Golden Lotus Award (Swarna Kamal)' and cash prize.

Awards not given

Following were the awards not given as no film was found to be suitable for the award: * Best Film on Family Welfare * Best Non-Feature Film on Family Welfare * Best Non-Feature Film Music Direction * Best Educational / Motivational / Instructional Film * Best Feature Film in Manipuri * Best Promotional Film * Best Exploration / Adventure Film

Controversies

The awards were surrounded by couple of controversies related to it. This delayed the final announcement of the awards. The year was considered as a 'zero year' for the Film Awards.

Bombay and Delhi High Court Judgements

As per the rule, award committee judges the films which have obtained the censorship certificate from

Central Board of Film Certification The Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC) is a statutory film-certification body in the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India. It is tasked with "regulating the public exhibition of films under the provision ...

in order to be eligible for entry. Noted film-makers

Anand Patwardhan Anand Patwardhan (born 18 February 1950) is an Indian documentary filmmaker known for his socio-political, human rights-oriented films. Some of his films explore the rise of religious fundamentalism, sectarianism and casteism in India, while oth ...

, Gaurav Jani and Simantini Dhuru had filed a petition in the

Bombay High Court The High Court of Bombay is the high court of the states of Maharashtra and Goa in India, and the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. It is seated primarily at Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), and is one of the ol ...

asking for exemptions for their films from obtaining censor board certification. Based on this petition, the court had given judgments to consider the uncensored films as well for the awards. In spite of this judgment, juries went ahead with the existing rule and left out uncensored non-feature films. On this judgment, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting decided to appeal in the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

against this verdict. Justice B.D. Ahmed of Supreme Court then given a verdict putting aside the earlier verdict given by Bombay High Court and made compulsory for the films to have the censor board certificate.

Favoritism for the films

Kolkata based film critic and one of the jurors for 53rd National Film Awards, Shyamali Deb Banerjee, had filed a petition in the

against the favouritism in the selection of films for the awards in the five categories and levelling charges of corruption and fixing in deciding the 53rd Awards. She alleged that there is pressure on the members of the jury by the Directorate of the Film Festivals to decide in favour of particular films. According to her, awards have been 'High Jacked' and nexus between producers, distributors and directors. To support her claim, she sent two letters to Directorate of the Film Festivals on 13 August and 4 September 2006, in which she questioned the selection process of the awards and also alleged that preliminary round drop-out films were then selected for the awards. She had challenged the decision to give the awards to

Black Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white have o ...

for Best Film in Hindi and Best Actor, Parineeta for Best Debut Director, saying it is not an original work and is inspired with the movies released earlier on the same theme.

Parzania ''Parzania'' (translation: ''Heaven and hell on earth'') is a 2007 Indian drama film co-written and directed by Rahul Dholakia; David N. Donihue is the other co-writer. The film featured Naseeruddin Shah and Sarika in the lead roles, while Cor ...

winning the

Best Director Best Director is the name of an award which is presented by various film, television and theatre organizations, festivals, and people's awards. It may refer to: Film awards * AACTA Award for Best Direction * Academy Award for Best Director * BA ...

for

Rahul Dholakia Rahul Dholakia is an Indian film director- producer-screenwriter, most known for his National Film Award-winning film, ''Parzania '' (Heaven & Hell On Earth) (2005),Sarika Sarika Thakur is an Indian actress and costume designer. In 2005, she won the National Film Award for Best Actress for the English-language film ''Parzania''. She was also awarded the National Film Award for Best Costume Design for her work i ...

for

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 aw ...

was accused to mock the Indian democratic system. However, Hindi Film

Apaharan ''Apaharan'' (English: ''Abduction'') is a 2005 Indian Hindi-language crime action film directed by Prakash Jha and stars Ajay Devgn, Bipasha Basu and Nana Patekar in the lead roles. It is the story of a complex relationship and clashing ideo ...

and Tamil film

Anniyan ''Anniyan'' () is a 2005 Indian Tamil-language psychological action thriller film written and directed by S. Shankar and produced by V. Ravichandran of Aascar Films. The plot centres on a disillusioned everyman whose frustration at what he see ...

which won Best Screenplay and Best Special Effects respectively were accused of not even qualifying the preliminary rounds and then winning the awards. However, the petition was dismissed by the court saying the petitioner had no case when the other members of the Jury had no objection to the selection of the films for the awards.

Awards for Black

Sanjay Leela Bhansali Sanjay Leela Bhansali (; born 24 February 1963) is an Indian filmmaker, director, screenwriter, and music composer who is known for his work in Hindi cinema. He is the recipient of several awards, including four National Film Awards, ten Filmfar ...

also faced the heat of controversy when Shyamali Deb Banerjee, a juror for the 53rd National Film Awards, claimed that the film was ineligible for awards as it was an adaptation of the film

The Miracle Worker ''The Miracle Worker'' refers to a broadcast, a play and various other adaptations of Helen Keller's 1903 autobiography '' The Story of My Life''. The first of these works was a 1957 ''Playhouse 90'' broadcast written by William Gibson and st ...

and according to the rules adaptations were ineligible for awards. She had also filed a petition in the court. Though the film finally won three national awards, for Best Actor, Best Costume Design and Best Feature Film in Hindi.

Awards for Parzania

Shyamali Deb Banerjee had also alleged

Rahul Dholakia Rahul Dholakia is an Indian film director- producer-screenwriter, most known for his National Film Award-winning film, ''Parzania '' (Heaven & Hell On Earth) (2005),Parzania ''Parzania'' (translation: ''Heaven and hell on earth'') is a 2007 Indian drama film co-written and directed by Rahul Dholakia; David N. Donihue is the other co-writer. The film featured Naseeruddin Shah and Sarika in the lead roles, while Cor ...

in her filed petition. It said that "film mocks the Indian democratic system and ends with just forming a human rights commission for a probe into the riots. This film has been banned in Gujarat and if the award for best director goes to this film, it might fan further controversy." Film won Rahul Dholakia, his first National Film Award for Best Direction and Sarika won Best Actress Award.

References

External links

National Film Awards Archives

Official Page for Directorate of Film Festivals, India
{{National Film Awards National Film Awards (India) ceremonies 2007 Indian film awards