Taare Zameen..., Chak De...in race for national awards

Aamir Khan's Taare Zameen Par, Chak De India starring Shah Rukh Khan and Jab We Met featuring Shahid Kapur and Kareena Kapoor are among the films in the race for national film awards for the year 2007.

Aamir Khan's Taare Zameen Par, Chak De India starring Shah Rukh Khan and Jab We Met featuring Shahid Kapur and Kareena Kapoor are among the films in the race for national film awards for the year 2007.

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Noted film maker Sai Paranjpe has been appointed as the head of the jury in the feature film category for national film awards for the year.

Sources in the Ministry for Information and Broadcasting said on Friday that well-known writer Namita Gokhale would be heading the jury for selecting best writings on Indian Cinema while documentary film maker Ashoke Vishwanathan will head the jury for non-film category.

More than 100 entries, including Taare Zameen Par and Chak De India, have been received by the ministry for both feature film and non-feature film categories.

The juries for respective categories were notified by the ministry last week, sources said.

The jury for selecting best writings on Indian Cinema started screening the entries from today while Sai Paranjpe-led jury will start screening entries in the feature film category from August 17.

Ministry sources said feature films and non-feature films in all major Indian languages and writings on Indian cinema, that came out in the year 2007, are eligible for national awards for that year.

With the selection process for finalising entries for the awards having started, senior officials in Directorate of Film Festivals (DIFF) said winners would be declared by the first week of September while the awards presentation would be held in October this year.

In July this year, Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni had held a meeting with ministry officials as well as senior officials of DIFF to streamline national film awards for the years 2007 and 2008.

Concerned over disruption in awards calendar and delay due to court cases, because of which the awards were running two years behind schedule, Soni had clearly directed her officials to finalise the awardees for 2007 and 2008 by the end of this year.

The ministry had given the national film awards for 2006 last year.

DIFF sources said once the winners of 2007 are finalised next month, the process for selection of the jury for 2008 awards would start by November this year so that the winners can be announced by early next year.