Winners of the 67th National Film Awards were announced on Monday, after a delay of around a year due to the pandemic. Top acting honours, for the year 2019, went to Kangana
Ranaut who won the Best Actress award for her films Panga and Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, and Manoj Bajpayee and Dhanush, who shared the Best Actor award for their Bhonsle and Asuran, respectively.
In a video on Twitter, Ranaut thanked the teams of both the films and said the award is shared by them all. Bajpayee, who is presently recovering from Covid-19, dedicated his award to his co-stars and producers who backed director Devashish Makhija’s vision. The names of the winners were announced in a press conference at the National Media Centre in New Delhi.
For supporting roles, Vijay Sethupathi won the award for Best Supporting Actor for Tamil film Super Deluxe and Pallavi Joshi was awarded as the Best Supporting Actress for The Tashkent Files.
The Tashkent Files also won director Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri the award for best dialogue in the screenplay category.
Chhichhore, starring late actor Sushant Singh Rajput, won the award for Best Hindi Film. Director Nitesh Tiwari told PTI, “I was not even thinking about it. I am still surprised,” adding, “On one hand, I am really happy for the team, on the other hand there’s this sense of loss because he (Rajput) isn’t with us.”
Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan won the honour for Best Director in the feature film category for BahattarHoorain. He said he was “overwhelmed” to receive his second National Award after his debut film, Lahore.
In music, Praak won the award for the Best Male Playback Singer for the song “Teri Mitti” from the period patriotic drama Kesari, and later took to Instagram to say thanks to his fans and the makers of the Akshay Kumar-starrer film.
Meanwhile, D. Imman won the award in the Best Music Director category for his work in Viswasam, saying it was “pure joy” to receive national recognition for Tamil music.
Another Tamil film Oththa Seruppu Size 7 bagged the award for re-recording mixer, which was shared by top sound designer Resul Pookutty and Bibin Dev.
Debutant director Vinod Kamble’s Kastoori was named the Best Children’s Film. He said the win was a “surreal” feeling for him.
Among films in other languages, sports drama Jersey won the Best Telugu Film, Kalira Atita was awarded Best Odia Film and Chhoriyan Chhoron Se Kam Nahi Hoti won the award for Best Haryanvi Film.
Producer Shiladitya Bora and director Abhijeet Mohan Warang also received a special mention for Marathi film Picasso.
The 67th National Film Awards were supposed to be held in May 2020 but were delayed indefinitely due to the pandemic.