The National Film Award for Best Direction is an honour presented annually at India's National Film Awards ceremony by the

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 ...

(DFF), an organisation set up by the Indian Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Since 1967, the award is given by a national panel appointed annually by the DFF to a director for their work within

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, ...

. It is presented by the

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 ...

at a ceremony held in New Delhi. The winner is given a "Swarna Kamal" (Golden Lotus) certificate and a cash prize of . Including ties and repeat winners, the DFF has presented a total of 53 Best Direction awards to 34 different directors. Although Indian cinema produces films in more than twenty languages, the performances of films that have won awards are of nine languages:

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 ...

(16 awards),

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam was des ...

(14 awards),

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 ...

(11 awards),

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 ...

(4 awards),

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 ...

and

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 ...

(3 awards each),

Marathi Marathi may refer to: *Marathi people, an Indo-Aryan ethnolinguistic group of Maharashtra, India *Marathi language, the Indo-Aryan language spoken by the Marathi people *Palaiosouda, also known as Marathi, a small island in Greece See also * * ...

(2 awards), Assamese and Punjabi (1 each). The first recipient was

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 ...

, who was honoured at the 15th National Film Awards for directing the 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 ...

'' (1967). Ray is also the most frequent recipient, with six wins. Adoor Gopalakrishnan has won 5 awards, which includes his debut Malayalam film '' Swayamvaram'' (1972).

Mrinal Sen Mrinal Sen (''Beng.'' মৃণাল সেন; 14 May 1923 – 30 December 2018) was an Indian film director, and screenwriter known for his work primarily in Bengali, and few Hindi and Telugu language films. Regarded as one of the finest Ind ...

has been awarded four times. He is also the only recipient to win the award for directing films in two different languages: Bengali and Hindi. At the

19th National Film Awards The 19th National Film Awards, presented by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India), Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India to felicitate the best of Cinema of India, Indian Cinema released in the year 1971. Juries Four di ...

Girish Karnad Girish Karnad (19 May 1938 – 10 June 2019) was an Indian actor, film director, Kannada writer, playwright and a Jnanpith awardee, who predominantly worked in South Indian cinema and Bollywood. His rise as a playwright in the 1960s marked the ...

and

B.V. Karanth Babukodi Venkataramana Karanth (Kannada: ಬಾಬುಕೋಡಿ ವೆಂಕಟರಮಣ ಕಾರಂತ) (19 September 1929 – 1 September 2002) widely known as B. V. Karanth was an Indian film director, playwright, actor, screenwriter, co ...

shared the award for co-directing the Kannada film ''

Vamsha Vriksha Vamsha Vriksha (The genealogy tree), is a 1971 Indian Kannada-language film directed by B. V. Karanth and Girish Karnad, based on S. L. Bhyrappa's novel of the same name. The film won the National Film Award for Best Direction.Shampa Banerjee, ...

'' (1972). The most recent recipient is Sachidanandan K. R., who was honoured at the

68th National Film Awards The 68th National Film Awards ceremony was an event during which the Directorate of Film Festivals presented its annual National Film Awards to honour the best films of 2020 in Indian cinema. The awards ceremony was originally slated to be held ...

for directing the Malayalam film '' Ayyappanum Koshiyum''.

Winners

Footnotes

References

External links

Official Page for Directorate of Film Festivals, India
{{featured list Direction Awards for best director