NEW DELHI: President Pratibha Patil will present the nation‘s highest award in cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, to D Rama Naidu and the 57th National Film Awards for 2009 at a function on 22 October.
D. Ramanaidu, the veteran film producer from Andhra Pradesh, will receive the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for the year 2009 for his outstanding contribution in the field of Indian Cinema.
The function will, as in previous years, take place in the plenary hall of Vigyan Bhavan.
With this, the backlog in presentation of National Film Awards that got delayed because of a legal case some years earlier, has been wiped. While the awards for 2008 were given in February and those for 2009 are being presented now.
The award consists of a Swarn Kamal, a cash prize of Rs one million and a shawl. The award is given on the basis of recommendations of a Committee of eminent persons. The award will be given at the National Films Awards Function scheduled to be held next month.
Amitabh Bachchan will receive the best actor award - his third national award - for his role in the film Paa while Ananya Chatterjee will get the best actress award for her role in the film Bengali film Abohoman directed by Rituparno Ghosh who also gets the best director award.
The Malayalam film Kutty Srank, directed by the well known Shaji N Karun, is to get the best feature film of the year award and four other awards in different categories: cinematography by Anjali Shukla, original screenplay by P F Mathews and Harikrishna, costume design by Jayakumar. Its editor Sreekar Prasad won a Special Jury award for this and two other films. The first, the Hindi film Kaminey and the next, Kerala Varma Pazhazzi Raja in Malayalam.
The Bollywood hit ‘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 who 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 Nargis Dutt award for the best film on national integration will go to Delhi 6 by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra. The film also received an award for best production design for Samir Chanda.
The best non-feature film award is shared by The Postman by B Manohar and Bilal by Saurav Sarangi. Cinema Yaana in Kannada by Dr 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 award.
