NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: Megastar Amitabh Bachchan has been selected to receive the best actor award for his role in the film Paa while Ananya Chatterjee is to get the best actress award for her role in the film Bengali film Abohoman by Rituparno Ghosh who has been chosen for the best director award in the 57th National Film Awards for 2009.

The Malayalam film Kutty Srank, directed by the wellknown Shaji N Karun, has been chosen as the best feature film of the year and has also won four other awards in different categories: cinematography by Anjali Shukla, original screenplay by PF Mathews and Harikrishna and costume design by Jayakumar. Its editor Sreekar Prasad won a Special Jury award for this and two other films: the Hindi film Kaminey and Kerala Varma Pazhazzi Raja in Malayalam. This is the first time that a woman cinematographer has won the national award in the category.

The Aamir Khan-starrer 3 Idiots by Raj Kumar Hirani won the award for best popular film providing wholesome entertainment, apart from getting two other awards: best re-recording of the final mixed track for Anup Dev and best lyric Behti Hawaa Ka Thha Woh by Swanand Kirkire.

Lahore in Hindi by Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan has won the Indira Gandhi award for best debut film of a director, with actor Farouque Shaikh getting the best supporting actor award.

The best supporting actress award went to Arundhati Naag for her role in Paa, which also received the award for best Hindi film of the year and best make-up for Christein Tinkey and Dominie Till. The film was produced by Amitabh Bachchan’s AB Corp.

The Nargis Dutt award for the best film on national integration went to Delhi 6 by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. The film also received an award for best production design for Samir Chanda.

Shyam Benegal’s film Well Done Abba got the award for best film on social issues while the best children’s film award was shared by Putaani Party in Kannada by Ramachandra PN and Keshu by Sivan. Both these films were produced by the Children’s Film Society, India.

The awards were announced by the feature film jury chairman Ramesh Sippy, non-feature jury headed by Mike Pandey and book jury member Sharad Dutt (in the absence of Chairman Samik Bandopadhyay), in the presence of additional director general in charge of the Directorate of Film Festivals SM Khan and several jury members.

The awards this year had been selected in a two-tier process: first by five regional juries and then by the central jury.
 
The award money ranges between Rs 50,000 for Rajat Kamal to Rs 2,50,000 for Swarna Kamal. The awards are expected to be presented in mid-October.

Khan said that with this announcement, the backlog of the national film awards created by a legal case in Delhi High Court had been cleared.

Best child actor award went to Jeeva and Anba Karasu for their role in the film Pasanga (Tamil) by Pandiraj which also won the best Tamil Film award and best dialogues, also written by Pandiraj.

The best non-feature film award was shared by The Postman by B Manohar and Bilal by Saurav Sarangi. Cinema Yaana in Kannada by K Puttaswamy received the best Book on film award while CS venkateswaran who writes in Malayalam won the best critic award. The Marathi book Eka Studioche Atmavrutta by Prabhakar Pendharkar got a special mention.

Rupam Islam won the best male playback singer award for Mahanagar@Kolkata in Bengali while Neelanjana Sarkar got the female singer award for the Bengali film Houseful.

The award for best adapted screenplay went to the Kannada film Kanasemba Kudureyaneri.

The Hindi film Kaminey received the best location sound award for Subash Sahoo while Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja received the sound designer award for Resool Pookutty, who was winner of the Oscar for Slumdog Millionnaire.

Abohoman has also won awards for best Bengali language film and best editing for Arghyakamal Mitra.

The best music direction award went to Anuraj Kashyap’s Hindi film Dev D with music by Amrit Trivedi while Ilayaraja got the best playback music award for Kerala Varma Pazhassi Raja, which has also got the best Malayalam film award for T Hariharan.

The Telugu film Magadheera received awards for special effects for R Kamal Kannan and choreography for K Siva Sankar.

The other awards for the regional languages went to: Assamese – Basundhara by Hiren Bara; Kannada – Kanasemba Kudureyaneri by Girish Kasarvalli; Konkani – Palatadcho Munis by Laxmikant Shetgaonkar produced by the National Film Development Corporation; and Marathi – Natarang by Ravindra Harichandra Jadhav.

In the non-feature awards, some of the main awards were: best debut shared by Kaushal Oza for Vaishnav Jan Toh and FTII’s Tathagata Singha for Ekti Kaktaliyo Golpo; compilation film Pandham Unmixed by Brahmanand S Singh on RD Burman; environment – In For Motion by Anirban Dutta; social issues – Mr India by Haobam Paban Kumar; Special award for child artiste Aasna Aslam in Kelkkunnundo; short fiction Boond by Abhishek Pathak; cinematography for Deepu S Unni for Gaarud which got the re-recordisng award for Lipika Singh Daral; editor Tarun Bhartiya and narrator Ranjan Palit for In Camera; and special mention to Nitika Bhagat for Vijay.