Thaindian News

New Delhi, Sep 6 (IANS) This year’s National Film Awards function Friday will feature something unique: six couples and a father-daughter duo, among others, will climb up the dias to receive a redesigned citation and a medal from President Pratibha Patil. Adding spice to the ceremony will be live performances by Rekha Bhardwaj and Suresh Wadekar.

The winning spouses who will take home awards are - Rekha-Vishal Bhardwaj for “Ishqiya”; Sachin-Bindiya Khanolkar for “Mee Sindhutai Sapkal”; Malaiak-Arbaaz Khan for “Dabangg”; K.R. Manoj-Ranjini Krishnan for “A Pestering Journey”; Shylaja Nag-B. Suresha for “Puttakkana Highway”; and Ananya-Manish Chakraborti for “Understanding Trafficking”.

Then, the father-daughter duo of Basantkumar Patil and Amruta Patil will receive the honour for their children’s film “Hejjegalu” (Kannada) and “Bettada Jeeva” (Kannada) respectively.

This year, child artists have put Maharashtra in the spotlight. Of the five winners, four children are from Maharashtra.

While Harsh Mayar of “I Am Kalam” fame comes from a less-privileged family from a resettlement colony in Dakshinpuri in Delhi, Shanatanu Ranganekar (”Champions”) and his co-star Machindra Gadkar are from Maharashtra; and Vivek Chabuskar, who has won the award for “Baboo Band Baja” and Suraj Pawar, who got a special mention award for “Pistulya”, are also from the same state.

For the first time in 58 years, the award certificate has got a makeover.

“We have completely changed the design and layout of the award certificate. It is now in A3 size with beautifully gold embossed Ashok Stambh on it. Than we have also redesigned the medal. For the first time, medals will be given in a display box. This is the first time in 58 years that the entire medal box and certificate has undergone a change,” said Anil Saxena, director general of film festivals.

“This year, like last year, we will have two life performances - one is by Rekha Bhardwaj, who won the best female playback singer award for the film “Ishqiya”. She will sing “Badi dheede dheede jali”. We will have Suresh Wadkar singing ‘Hey bhaskara kshitijavari ya’ from ‘Mee Sindhutai Sapkal’ for which he won the best playback singer male award. If I’m not wrong, this is Suresh Wadkar’s first national award,” he added.

Last year the National Film Awards added a new category for digital movies and “Adaminte Makan Abu” became the first digital film to win a national award.

“For the first time a digital film has won the best feature film award. We introduced digital film category only last year and in second year only a digital film winning an award shows that digital technology has come of age in the national award. It’s a shot in the arm for digital filmmakers who never thought that they could compete with celluloid.”

Many feel that the national award to a great extent shows essence of socialism as it honours talent from every section of filmmaking society.

The national awards bring multi-crore movie like “Dabangg” to small fry like “Loha Garam Hai”, made at a shoestring budget in a remote area in Jharkhand on the same platform and honour them for their creative talent.