46 thoughts on “National Film Awards Report: I Didn’t Win the Best Book”

1. This was a very satisfying and deserving awards list. and the way awards were presented by shekar kapur was beautiful. giving little insight about every film. It actually felt like they watched all the films unlike previous year. and Thondimuthal and fahadh faasil deserved all the recognitions. infact even more. I was expecting best film and best actor for them.. probably fahad will win the best actor next year for carbon.

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   • I still just can’t see what is so remarkable about Carbon, either the film or his performance. But, so far as I can tell from the little I know about this list, it was a generally good collection.

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     • I was stunned by fahad in carbon. After watching thondimuthal I thought it would be his best ever peformance and he wud never surpass it. But he proved me wrong in the very next film

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2. In which state Jasari is spoken?

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   • Internet says, an Island off of Kerala? But I am not sure how correct The Internet is in this case.

     On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 12:21 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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     • There is very little information about this language, and still they are doing movies in it .

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       • Did you ever run across the “Gullah” language? It’s a slave dialect that evolved into it’s own language and there was a movie made in it in the 90s I think. I’ve seen parts of that movie, but I should really watch all of it.

         On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 12:41 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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         • Its spoken in Lakshadweep which is an island based off on Kerala. Thats where Mosayile Kuthira Meenugal was shot/based. A lot like Malayalam

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         • and Anarkali!

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3. Actually I thought Fahad Fazil was the supporting actor and Suraj Venjaramoodu was the lead in Thondimothalum Driksakshiyum. He was really good in the movie. The movie gets going once he shows up – and I thought he walked that tight rope between guilt and sympathy very well. He does really well in roles that have a lot of grey. Now I obviously haven’t seen all the movies but one thing to note is movies have to apply for each category. So the producers have to send in applications for best Supporting actor, its not that the jury sees all the movies to decide on it. Also, big big factor – last year there was a lot of backlash that Fahad lost best actor to Akshay Kumar for Maheshinte Prathikaram. I mean any one should’ve won over Akshay Kumar but that is also probably something the jury was thinking about.

   Also for screenplay, don’t think Ittefaq would qualify for it because it would go to the Adapted section (there was too much that it borrowed from the original Ittefaq). And National Awards always go for movies that are rooted and realistic.

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   • See, this is the background that I don’t have! I didn’t know Fahad lost last year (Akshay winning was ridiculous, as I said at the time, primarily because it was for Rustom. He should have won for Airlift if anything).

     On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 12:48 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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     • I thought Akshay shouldn’t have won it at all period! I don’t really like his acting except when he does comedy. If anything Rajkumar should’ve won it for Trapped or *any* of his other movies.
       But Priyadarshan was going through a brain fade obviously.

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       • What bothers me is that i can accept the basic premise that Priyadarshan was going to give it to Akshay no matter what just because they are friends, but once you are limited down to only Akshay performances in 2016, why FREAKIN RUSTOM??????

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         • Haha I couldn’t get over the bright saturated frames in that movie. The colorist sure had a free hand 😀

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         • Which I am chalking up to Akshay’s laziness! He didn’t want to work long hours or do location shooting, so they just shot the whole thing on soundstages and used the color correction to help cover up the bad green screen.

           On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 1:37 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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4. I haven’t watched Thondimuthalum fully, but whatever I’ve seen of it, Fahad was brilliant. He’s one of my favorites in Malayalam, loved him in Annayum Rasoolum and in Bangalore Days.

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5. Ohhh that makes so much sense vis-a-vis bad coloring. Thank you for solving that puzzle! I was like “How/Why would they do that??!? “

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   • I suspect the same thing with Rohit Shetty. He is in love with coloring as an artistic technique, which I am fine with because he uses it well (instead of just stupid pointless correction like in Rustom), but I bet he started using it to hide green screen effects and wires.

     On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 3:08 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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6. Happy with the wins for Fahadh Fazil and Thondimuthalum driksakshiyum – favourite performance and movie from last year. And it’s 2 out of 2 for the director of the film, won national awards for both his films so far. Also good to see the awards reflect the overall quality of regional films with respect to Bollywood last year.

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7. Re your question on the Assamese films. I believe once a film is picked as the overall “best film” from the whole country, it is no longer in the running for its language category.

   What really strikes me is the puny amount of the cash prizes. These prize amounts were set up in the 1950’s (or whenever the awards were first instituted) when the budgets for entire feature films was in the lakhs –heck, you could make a commercial Telugu film starring the likes of ANR, NTR, and Savitri for 2-3 lakhs, and 5 lakhs was considered “mega budget.” So giving 2.5 or even 1.5 lakhs was a realistic contribution to funding the filmmaker’s next film, and you could say that the award was truly “encouraging” talented people. But now? These people could appear on a freaking TV game show and make that much money or more. They really need to revamp the prize amounts to take inflation into account. Heck, the prize amount isn’t even enough to pay the entry fee into a major international film festival, how is it supposed to encourage the smaller, independent film maker? As for the larger films, the budget for Bahubali 2 was about 350 crores, and they give the producer 2 lakhs (less than 1/10000 of the cost of production) to recognize his efforts?

   Re Ghazi — don’t forget it’s produced by Rana, i.e., Suresh Productions, which is a huge, huge production house in Telugu films, and has been for a few generations. If you want to talk connections, that’s probably what helped, not anything to do with KJo or Dharma, who only handled the Hindi dubbed version, just like for the Bahubali films. Also, the film was a genuine hit in Telugu, and was much appreciated for its special effects.

   These awards are for films released in 2017. Didn’t Arjun Reddy release in 2018? Plus that producer is much smaller than Suresh Productions.

   As someone said above, the jury only reviews the films that have been submitted to it. For the categories where there was no winner, it’s quite possible (actually probable) that no one submitted a film in that category. Another point for you to note about the jury is that it is dissolved after each prize giving session, and reconstituted for the next year’s awards, so usually it’s a new set of people (and chairperson) each year. Hence, tastes (and connections) will vary from year to year.

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   • I think the Jury system is really healthy, if you assume the jury will always have some kind of bias, the best thing to do is keep refreshing the jury and changing up the biases.

     I didn’t even think about how small the prizes were, I was translating them to American money, when they would be reasonable. $250,000 is a stretch even for a small film, but doable with money left over for festival admissions and travel. But $10,000 or whatever it would be in Rupees (and that’s the top prize) would cover maybe a short film with volunteer workers, but no money for anything else. If they don’t want to reform them, they should just get rid of them entirely, make it clear that the award is the honor and stop a pretense of any monetary benefit.

     Oh, and Arjun Reddy was definitely 2017. But maybe the director’s next film, with a higher profile and a different Jury, will win.

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     • As we’ve said, the jury only considers the films submitted to them, and there is an application fee to submit — not too large, but large enough to keep the flakes out. It’s entirely possible that the Arjun Reddy producer, being a small time one, either didn’t want to spring the application fee, wasn’t aware he’d have to apply, missed the deadline for applying, or just didn’t care about the national awards, since the prize amount is so small. One of the biggest of these “producer forgot” cases is that of Manisha for Khamoshi – the Musical. Bhansali apparently forgot to apply to have her considered for best actress, and missed the deadline to apply when he finally did remember, thus robbing Manisha of an award for one of her finest performances.

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       • One drawback for Arjun Reddy is its edgy subject matter. The government award committee would rather play safe.

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         • That, too, but didn’t it win a lot of state awards?

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       • Thank you! that explains one of the factors i was missing, that would be the simple connection between Irada winning a couple awards and Netflix. If the producer/director was savvy enough to manage a Netflix deal, no doubt he was savvy enough to handle the paperwork for a National Award submission. While Arjun Reddy, with its confusing production rights history (the director himself not realizing the remake rights were up for sale), sounds like a production that didn’t have everything quite together.

         On Fri, Apr 13, 2018 at 8:13 PM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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8. I might be the biggest Bahubali fan in the world and I am very upset of the movie winning the NATIONAL AWARD FOR SPECIAL/VISUAL EFFECTS. Really?! ‘____________’ #PalmTrees

   Very Happy for Fahad Fazil ❤ and T.D.

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   • Well, to be fair, part of the reason the palm tree sequence felt ridiculous is because they were surprisingly realistic looking trees.

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     • hahahaha. Point Taken xD

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9. Oh, btw, they also have an award for best film criticism. 🙂 Bardwaj Rangan won it some years ago, which is how I became aware of him.

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   • And I win NOTHING?????? I feel so snubbed.

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     • If might possibly be because of all the raunchy fanfic 😂

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       • In that case, we need more women on the committee who will see that as a plus not a minus.

         On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 7:56 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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         • They would require an entirely new category for the fanfic that we get on this blog 😂

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         • AHA!!!! There’s the “unwholesome” entertainment category!

           On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 8:26 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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         • 😂

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10. Awards galore for the Malayalam film industry! This was how it used to be during the 80’s – the local media thinks the main reason for this is because there was no Malayalee in the committee.

    JASARI is a language spoken in the Lakshwadeep islands. It’s a combination of Malayalam, Tamil & Arabic. It’s probably the first JASARI film to be made in India, and I think by people from Kerala.

    Thondimuthal is a brilliant film! And so was Fahadh’s acting. Personally thought it was international quality!

    So so many people have rated it as the best film for 2017 (B Rangan, Srihari from rediff, The Take Off director, Lijo Jose Pellisseri, so many of them).

    I totally get it that you didn’t “get” the film – that’s because there was no attempt to make you understand (one reason why I thought it was brilliant).

    This is what Sekhar Kapoor had to say about the film –

    The best male playback singer is “K J Yesudas”. He’s not just a “veteran” singer. He’s a legend, and already won the award 7 times (and some 40 state awards to go with it). Needless to say, it’s the highest by anybody by far!

    It’s only 7 because some jury in the past felt he might not accept any more awards (the second best singer in His Highness Abdullah won the national award that year ). He’s also a “Padma VIbhushan”, the second highest civilian award. He doesn’t need “to be given a recognition for being an old veteran”

    I know you’re disappointed because Bollywood didn’t win much. To me, it was a very fair judgement after a long long time! Well, maybe they could’ve swapped Sridevi’s award with Parvathy (but no complaints). Mostly, I’m glad that they ignored the crap they call bollywood!

    Sekhar Kapoor on Bollywood vs Regional:-

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11. Malayali Cinematographers are some of the best in business It has been so for a long time -probably from the Santhosh Sivan days.

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    • Actually there were good cinematographers before him like Venu, Shaji N karun.The difference is Santosh Sivan chose to work in other industries.Also the idea of cinematography was different then,the frames were kept less flashy and unnoticeable.

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12. Shekhar Kapoor is mincing no words:
    twitter.com/shekharkapur/status/985003088653107201

    The jury for National awards is definitely guided by the chairman’s biases. Years when Priyadarshan, Ramesh Sippy etc becomes jury chairmans were the years for celebrating mediocrity & Bollywood. Shekhar Kapur doesn’t seem like a fan of Bollywood which helped the deserving films & artists from other industries win. These awards are the only chance for the actors & technicians from small industries, small films to gain a pan-India appreciation.
    Shekhar Kapur though seems to have made exceptions for his own biases. I can’t imagine the BGM of any other movie, let alone Mom’s BGM, contributing as much as MM Keeravani’s score did for Baahubali. I strongly believe that that BGM score was one of the top reasons people connected so well with the emotions of that movie. So that’s Shekhar Kapur saying hi-five to his friend A R Rahman. Kaatru Veliyidai’s music also was average even for an ARR fan like me. So that’s Shekhar Kapur doing a Priyadarshan for his friend ARR.

    One of the jury members has now revealed that Sridevi was never part of the initial rounds of judging and the jury was veering towards Parvathy. He has accused Shekhar Kapur of sabotaging the award either due to his own bias or political interference. Even before this reveal, I felt it is a highly questionable way to pay tribute to the memory of a wonderful actress. She had given so many award worthy performances when she was alive. And this posthumous award is not going to be an encouragement to Sridevi in a way it would inspire a living one to do better or gain the due recognition. This award is for Sridevi’s legacy & those who want to decorate her memory with honours. I don’t see the Bharataratna or the Padma Vibhushan nominations too far.

    Arjun Reddy for best Telugu film? There are many young girls who already think having a possessive, controlling & angry boyfriend is all cute & romantic. The film doesn’t preach so but by giving an award, the misogynistic, troublesome tone & character of Arjun Reddy is validated as something worth recognising. Also if you take away Vijay’s performance, it is mere Devdas story.Ghazi had a lot more interesting plot, setting & execution. The non-jingoistic,subdued nationalist tone is an added plus when looking for best film in an industry where majority of the movies are masala flicks & not known for artistic quality.

    I’m going to be a little cheeky & say that I don’t see you winning a critic award or book award at the National awards, if you keep on writing that Aiyaa & A Gentleman are brilliant , JHMS is deep, Ittefaq is original,SRK’s performances are different & path breaking & Fahadh’s is ‘not national award-worthy’. That is not until some Bollywood director becomes the jury chairman..;)

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    • Arjun Reddy misogynistic?
      It’s not called misogynistic/nepotic if it’s not in Malayalam (Blog rules!)

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13. As always BR’s take on the awards is objective & worth reading:
    http://www.filmcompanion.in/the-contentious-nature-of-the-national-awards-baahubali-village-rockstars-sridevi/

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    • Thanks for the link! He articulates why I wouldn’t want to be on the National Awards committee, or even write much of an article on them. I know Hindi cinema, I watch every Hindi release, I can tell you what I think was the best Hindi film/performance/script/etc. of the year. But there is so much else I haven’t seen.

      On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 6:46 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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      • I think you do yourself a disservice when you say you are not equipped to talk about non Hindi films. As a regular reader of your blog, I have discovered many a themes that I had missed from some of the oft watched films, after reading your reviews. I don’t remember reading a single one of your reviews(non-Hindi) that made me think ‘what’s she talking about’. If I were to speculate, your love for Hindi films is holding you back from branching out to other languages & truly appreciating them. It’s like you feel guilty of loving them, leaving behind your first-love. So you hurry back to your first love-jaded as it is. There’s also a question of personal preference to certain kind of movies & actors which I assume a critic should be able to sweep under the floor when reviewing?

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        • I can review film by film, absolutely. It’s the judgement of every film in history, and being able to discuss someone’s growth as an actor compared to past performances, and knowing which director is known for what kind of film and so on, the context, that is what I don’t have outside of Hindi. Not because I necessarily “like” Hindi better, but because I’ve been watching those movies and learning about that industry for 13 years, and I’ve only started on other languages 3 years ago. There’s just no comparison in my knowledge base. Give me another 10 years and maybe I will catch up 🙂

          On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 8:16 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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          • Well it’s precisely in those non-review posts,particularly while talking about some of the current actors, directors & industry practices that the lover/loyalist makes an appearance over the industry watcher.The hesitance in critiquing some of the obvious failings in Bollywood & it’s actors is not apparent while discussing a Hindi film & it’s merits.

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          • Then I will give you another thing to think about. Perhaps it is just my style not to criticize as harshly when I am writing outside of a particular film, doing more general discussions. And since I only write those posts on the Hindi film industry, it appears I am being soft on it. But if I felt capable of writing similar general posts on other industries, you would see I treated them in the same way. I am unlikely to take an overall critical view of any broad sweeping topic, but rather an overall positive view. My criticisms are saved for when I am discussing a very specific limited topic.

            On Sat, Apr 14, 2018 at 9:59 AM, dontcallitbollywood wrote:

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