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Vanaprastham is best film, Sarfarosh is most popular

B B Nagpal in New Delhi

Malayalam feature film Vanaprastham by renowned director-cameraman Shaji N Karun was named the best film, while eminent film-maker Buddhadev Dasgupta bagged the best director award for Uttara at the 47th National Film Awards.

Vanaprastham producer and popular star Mohanlal won the best actor award, while actress Kiron Kher walked away with the best actress award for the film Bariwali, directed by Rituparno Ghosh and produced by her husband, Anupam Kher.

Top box-office grossers of the last year Sarfarosh and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam also bagged top awards. While the Aamir Khan-starrer by John Matthew Mathan was named the most popular film providing wholesome entertainment, the Sanjay Leela Bhansali-directed Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam bagged four awards, including art direction of Nitin Desai.

In the awards -- announced at a press meet here this afternoon by the three juries headed by eminent directors Gautam Ghosh (feature), Jabbar Patel (non-feature) and senior journalist K Satchidanandan (critics) -- Arvind Sinha's Dui Paatan Ke Beech Mein (Hindi) got the best non-feature film award.

The best book award was shared by two authors: Madhu Eravamlara for Malayala Cinemayun Sahityavum and Aruna Anant Damle for Marathi Chitrapat Sangeetachi Vatchal. The critic's award in this category went to I Shanmugha Das.

The Punjabi film Shaheed Udham Singh, directed by Chitraarth and starring actor-Parliamentarian Raj Babbar, got the Nargis Dutt Award for national integration, while the Indira Gandhi Award for the first film of a director was shared by two films -- the English feature film Dollar Dreams (Shekhar Kammula) and Haryanvi Laado (Ashwini Chaudhary).

The Hindi film, Goal, by Gul Bahar Singh for the Children's Film Society, India, won the best children's film award.

While Hindi films bagged nine awards, Malayalam and Bengali films got seven awards each. Tamil films got five awards, of which three were bagged by Kamal Haasan's Hey! Ram (which had later been dubbed in Hindi).

English, Haryanvi, Punjabi, Assamese, Kannada, Marathi, Oriya and Telugu films won one award each.

The Union Health Ministry-produced Hindi feature films, Hari Bhari and Kairee, directed by renowned directors Shyam Benegal and Amol Palekar respectively won awards for family welfare and social issues.

Jalamarmaram in Malayalam got the award for environmental conservation, with its star Aswin Thampy winning the best child artiste award.

Atul Kulkarni won the best supporting actor award for his role in Hey! Ram and former actress Sarika Kamal Haasan won the award for costume design for the same film.

Two young actresses Sudipta Chakraborty and Sohini Haldar won the supporting artiste awards for Bariwali and Paromitar Ek Din respectively.

Paromitar Ek Din also won a award for singer Jayshree Dasgupta for her song Hriday ammar prokash holo.

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam starring Ajay Devgan, Aishwarya Rai, and Salman Khan also won awards for cinematography (Anil Mehta), music direction (Ismail Darbar) and choreography (Sameer Tanna and Arsh Tanna) for the song Dhol baje...

Male playback singer M G Sreekumar won a award for Chantu pottum in the Malayalam film, Vasanthiyum Lekshimiyum Pinne Njanum, which also won the special jury award for actor Kalabhavan Mani.

The screenplay award went to Madampu Kunjukuttan for the Malayalam film Karunam, while Anup Mukhopadhyay won the audiography award for Uttara. Sreekar Prasad bagged the editing award for Vanaprastham.

Vairamuthu won the best lyric award for Muthal murai killi paarthen in the Tamil film, Sangamam

The regional language film awards went to:
Assamese: Pokhi by Jahnu Barua
Hindi: Shool by E Nivas
Kannada: Kanooru Heggadithi by Girish Karnad
Malayalam: Punaradhivaasam by V K Prakash
Marathi: Ghara Baher by Sanjay Surkar
Oriya: Biswaprakash by Susant Misra
Tamil: Sethu by Bala
Telugu: Kalisundam... Raa by Uday Prakash.

While the book jury also made a special mention of the book Economic Aspects Of The Film Industry In Kerala by Uma J Nair, the Malayalam film Deivangal Padiyirangumbol by Pradeep Kumar won the award for the first non-feature of a director.

The Tamil film Blindfolded, by A Shriram, won the best short-fiction film award. Ravi Varma was adjudged the best cinematographer for the Malayalam film Kalamandalam Gopi, while the short film Of Confucius, S-Sports And Toy Funs won two awards: the special jury prize for director Deep Prakash and best editing for Ajith Kumar.

Two films -- Koihatir Dhulia (Assamese) by Hemanta Das and Surabhi (Telugu) made by well-known critic K N T Sastry -- shared the best anthropological/ethnographic film award, while two more --Nottam on Kathakali actor Kizhipadam Kumaran Nair by M R Rajan and Mallika Sarabhai by Aruna Raje Patil -- shared the best biographical film award.

Aribam Syam Sarma, who has made it to the National Film Awards almost every year, won the arts/cultural award for Thang Ta -- The Martial Art Of Manipur, made for the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts.

The Films Division won awards for two films -- And The Bamboo Blooms in English by Josy Joseph in the environment/conservation category and the Hindi Atank Ka Andhakar by Rajiv Kumar in the social issues category.

Chinmoy Nath won the audiography award for The Vehicle With a Soul of a Man. There was a special mention by the jury for Vinod Subramanian's bilingual, Fire.

The 16-member feature film jury went through 95 entries, while the five-member non-feature jury saw 81 films. Fourteen books and the works of 15 critics were also examined by the three-member book jury.

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