NEW DELHI: The Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the country‘s highest honour in cinema, will be presented to renowned filmmaker K Balachander by President Pratibha Devi Singh Patil at the ceremony to give away the 58th National Film Awards for 2010 on 9 September.
The Malayalam film ‘Adaminte Makan Abu‘ by Salim Ahamed has been chosen the best film while the popular blockbuster ‘Dabangg‘ by Abhinav Singh Kashyap received the award for the best popular film providing wholesome entertainment.
Tamil and Marathi films dominated the awards with 14 and ten awards respectively in the feature film category, with Hindi films getting seven awards, four of which went to ‘Ishqiya‘ by Vishal Bhardwaj: female playback to Rekha Bhardwaj, location sound recording by Kaamod Kharade, re-recordist of final mixed track to Debajit Changmal, and music direction to Vishal Bhardwaj himself.
‘Do dooni chaar‘ by Habib Faisal got the best Hindi film award.
The Indo-Bangladesh venture ‘Moner Manush‘ by Goutam Ghose received two awards: the Nargis Dutt Award for best feature film on National Integration and for Make-up by Vikram Gaikwad.
The best actor award went to Dhanush in the film ‘Andukalam‘ in Tamil and Salim Kumar for the Malayalam film ‘Adaminte Makan Abu‘, while the Best actress award has gone to Mitalee Jagtap for ‘Baboo Band Baaja‘ in Marathi and Saranya Panvannan for the Tamil film ‘Thenmerkku Paruvakkaru‘. The child actor award has gone to four children: Harsh Mayar for ‘I am Kalam‘ in Hindi, Shantanu Ranganekar and Machindra Gadkar in the Marathi film ‘Champion‘, and Vivek Chabukswar for the Marathi ‘Baboo Band Baaja‘. The best supporting awards went to Tamil films: J Thambi Ramaiah for ‘Mynaa‘ and actress Sukumari for ‘Namma Gramam‘.
The best director is Vetrimaran for the Tamil ‘Aadukalam‘ which also got the original screenplay award for him, the editing award for T E Kishore, the choreography award for Dinesh Kumar, and the Special Mention for actor V I S Jayaraman.
Balachander is remembered for his Hindi film ‘Ek Duje ke Liye‘ and Tamil satire ‘Thaneer Thaneer‘. The award is conferred by the Central Government of India for outstanding contribution to the growth and development of Indian Cinema. The award consists of a Swarn Kamal, a cash prize of Rs 1 million, and a shawl.
Balachander has been film director, screenplay writer and producer for more than 45 years. He has written, directed and produced more than 100 films in Tamil, Telugu, Hindi and Kannada. He is known for his distinct film-making style. The films he scripts and directs analyse unusual or complicated inter-personal relationships and social themes. Balachander has the uncanny knack of spotting talent.
