Malayalam Shines in National Awards

The Malayalam film industry seems to steal the limelight in many award shows including the 64^th national film awards hosted on Friday in New Delhi. C M Surabhi won the award for best actress for her role in `Minnaminungu, the firefly’. The same movie had got Surabhi a special jury mention earlier in the Kerala State Film Awards.

The jury chairman S Priyadarshan says her performance in the movie was incomparable. Adish Praveen bagged the award for best child artist for his innocent role in the movie ‘Kunju Daivam’. Priyadarshan revealed how difficult it was to pick the best one from 22 child artists as every one of them had given an extraordinary performance.

Malayalam movie ‘Maheshinte Prathikaram’ won the award for best feature film and Syam Pushkaran was given the award for the best original screenplay for the same movie. Actor Mohanlal won special jury mention for his performance in Janatha Garage, Munthirivallikal Thalirkkumbol and Pulimurugan. A new award for best action direction was accounced for the first time which was won by Peter Hein for Pulimurugan. The ‘Shivaay’ action director was also considered but since he was a foreigner and Hein was born in Chennai to Vietnamese immigrants he was preffered for the award.

Jayadevan Chakkadath won the award for audiography for the movie ‘Kadu Pookkunna Neram’.

Priyadarshan said even though Malayalam movies did well the movies when compared to the Bengali and Marathi movies were much inferior. All the Marathi and Bengali movies both commercial and regular ones were based on the social problems that are faced by the people these days.