E-Paper
Regional films sidelined at awards
National Film Awards 2007 has turned into a bad news for regional cinema. India’s biggest film producing centre Andhra Pradesh failed to bag even a single award.
National Film Awards 2007 has turned into a bad news for regional cinema. India’s biggest film producing centre Andhra Pradesh failed to bag even a single award.
There was not a single nomination from once popular cinema centers like Punjab, Orissa and North-east India.
“It was sad there was not enough participation from regional cinema,” said Sai Paranjpye, chairperson of the feature film jury.
As a result for best feature film for languages specified in schedule VIII of the Constitution, awards were given for films only in six languages —Hindi (1971), Bengali (BallygungeCourt), Kannada (Gulabi Talkies), Malayalam (Ore Kadal), Marathi (Nirop) and Tamil (Periyar).
For best feature film in English, the Last Lear, a bi-lingual directed by Rituparno Ghosh, was awarded the best movie. Over 100 movies from across India had filed nomination for the awards.
In the non-film category, Hope Dies Last in War by producer-director Supriyo Sen won the best film award. In all, awards in 17 categories in non-film section were given.
