It was Bollywood’s day at the National Awards Tuesday with the heartwarming ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ bagging four awards, Konkona SenSharma getting best supporting actress for ‘Omkara’, Madhur Bhandarkar being tagged best director for ‘Traffic Signal’ and Aditya Chopra bagging best producer for ‘Kabul Express’.
In the National Awards for 2006, announced Tuesday, Malayalam film ‘Pulijanmam’ has been declared the best feature film. Veteran Bengali thespian Soumitra Chatterjee has got the award for best actor for his role in ‘Podokkhep’ while Tamil cinema’s Priyamani has got the best actress title for ‘Paruthi Veeran’.
‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’, which brought Mahatma Gandhi back into the popular reckoning and starred Sanjay Dutt and Vidya Balan, won the National Award for best popular film providing wholesome entertainment. It was given for ‘revalidating the philosophy of non-violence in a strife-torn world and helping rediscover the Gandhi within the common man’, read the citation.
Besides, Abhijat Joshi, Raj Kumar Hirani and Vidhu Vinod Chopra got the best screenplay award. Best lyricist went to Swanand Kirkire for the song ‘Bande Mein Tha Dum – Vande Mataram’.
Dilip Prabhavalkar was adjudged best supporting actor for his roles in ‘Lage Raho Munnabhai’ and in the Marathi film ‘Shevri’.
Divya Chahadkar was given the best child artist prize for the Konkani film ‘Antarnad’. The best male playback singer was Gurdas Mann for the Punjabi ‘Waris Shah Ishq Da Waris’ and the best female playback singer was Aarti Anklekar Tikekar for ‘Antarnad’.
The best feature film in Hindi was ‘Khosla Ka Ghosla’ and the best feature film in English ‘Quest’.
The National Award for best producers went to Anthony Joseph for ‘Eakantham’ and Aditya Chopra for ‘Kabul Express’.
The Indira Gandhi award for best first film of a director went to the Malayalam film ‘Eakantham’ and ‘Kabul Express’.
— IANS
