India’s most respected film award, the 54th National Film Awards, has just announced the winners for 2006. (The awards had been horribly delayed because of some stay orders). Priyamani has once again done Tamil cinema proud by winning best actress for Paruthiveeran. Earlier she had won at the Osian’s festival as well. Responding to the honour,the actress said, “I am elated, happy and speechless at the moment. It can’t get better than this. Muthazhagu has given me everything- Name, Fame, Awards, Recognition and above all box-office success.” The best Tamil film went to Vasanthabalan’s Veyil. Finally, Soumitra Chatterjee bagged best actor for the Bengali film, Podokhep. Unbelievably enough, this marvellous actor has never won a National Award for this category before! The best feature went to the Malayalam film Pulijanmam, directed by Priyanandanan. Once again, Madhur Bhandarkar bagged best director for Traffic Signal. Speaking to the media, an elated Bhandarkar quipped, “The National Award is the only big award for me. It’s an honour and I could not have asked for more,"
Predictably Lage Raho Munnabhai won for most popular film, while Kabul Express and Eakantham jointly took the Indira Gandhi prize for best first film of a director. The youngest director in the world, Kishan SS (who was nine when he made the film) won best children’s film for Care of Footpath. Vishal Bhardwaj was given a special jury award for Omkara, while Konkona Sen Sharma took best supporting actress for the same. Dilip Prabhavalkar won best supporting actor for LRM and for Shevri. Best cinematography was awarded to Goutam Ghose for Yatra.
