The National Film Award for Best Feature Film in Malayalam is one of the National Film Awards presented annually 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 ...

, the organisation set up by Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, India. It is one of several awards presented for feature films and awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus). The National Film Awards, established in 1954, are the most prominent film awards in India that merit the best of the

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, ...

. The ceremony also presents awards for films in various

regional languages * A regional language is a language spoken in a region of a sovereign state, whether it be a small area, a federated state or province or some wider area. Internationally, for the purposes of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Lan ...

. Awards for films in seven regional language (

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 ...

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 ...

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 * * ...

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 ...

and

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of India *Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Telugu language ** Telugu (Unicode block), a block of Telugu characters in Unicode S ...

) started from 2nd National Film Awards which were presented on 21 December 1955. Three awards of "President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film", "Certificate of Merit for the Second Best Feature Film" and "Certificate of Merit for the Third Best Feature Film" were instituted. The later two certificate awards were discontinued from 15th National Film Awards (1967). The first winner of the "President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Malayalam" was the 1954 film ''

Neelakuyil ''Neelakuyil'' ( en, The Blue Cuckoo; ml, നീലക്കുയിൽ) is a 1954 Malayalam film jointly directed by P. Bhaskaran and Ramu Kariat. It is a neo-realistic melodrama and was based on a story written by Uroob who co-wrote the ...

''. Jointly directed by P. Bhaskaran and

Ramu Kariat Ramu Kariat (1 February 1927 – 10 February 1979) was an Indian film director for almost three decades from the 1950s to the 1970s, who directed many acclaimed films in the Malayalam cinema. His noted films include '' Neelakkuyil'' (1954), '' ...

, the film was based on a story written by Malayalam writer

Uroob Parutholli Chalappurathu Kuttikrishnan, popularly known by his pen name Uroob ( ml, ഉറൂബ്; 1915 – 1979) was an Indian writer of Malayalam literature. Along with Basheer, Thakazhi, Kesavadev, and Pottekkatt, Uroob was counted a ...

. It told the story of a love affair between a Dalit girl and an educated, high caste school teacher. The film is considered landmark in Malayalam cinema history. Along with ''Neelakuyil'', S. S. Rajan directed film '' Sneha Seema'' was honoured with a Certificate of Merit. Following is the list of ''Silver Lotus Award (Rajat Kamal)'' recipient films produced in

Malayalam language 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 ...

Winners

Award includes 'Rajat Kamal' (Silver Lotus Award) and cash prize. Following are the award winners over the years:

References

External links

Official Page for Directorate of Film Festivals, India

National Film Awards Archives
{{National Film Awards

Malayalam cinema