Southern films bag top honours at 55th National Awards

Southern cinema scored big at the 55th National Awards Monday with the Tamil film “Kanchivaram” adjudged best feature film and Prakash Raj best actor for his performance in it, while Adoor Gopalakrishnan bagged best director for the Malayalam film “Naalu Pennungal” and Uma Shri best actress for “Gulabi Talkies” in Kannada.

This is Gopalakrishnan’s ninth National Award — his film also wins best editing award for B. Ajith — and third for Tamil star Prakash Raj after “Dhaya” (special jury award in 2003) and “Iruvar” (best supporting actor in 1997).

Girish Kasaravalli’s “Gulabi Talkies” about a Muslim midwife is also the best Kannada film in the awards for 2007 announced here by S.M. Khan, director of the Directorate of Film Festivals and jury members Sai Paranjape, Ashok Viswanathan and Namita Gokhale.

Bollywood gets a mention too with Aamir Khan’s directorial debut “Taare Zameen Par” getting best family welfare award. Lyricist Prasoon Joshi is best lyricist for “Maa” from “Taare Zameen Par” about a dyslexic child. The song also gets Shankar Mahadevan the National Award for best playback singer.

Shah Rukh Khan starrer “Chak De! India”, about a humiliated national level hockey player who steers the women’s team to international victory, has been awarded best film in overall entertainment. Sabu Cyril wins the best art direction award for “Om Shanti Om”.

Veteran choreographer Saroj Khan gets an award for the song “Yeh Ishk Hai” from “Jab We Met”.

Anil Kapoor’s “Gandhi My Father” has won three awards - Feroz Abbas Khan, the director of the film, gets the National Award for best screenplay and Darshan Zariwala bags best supporting actor for portraying Gandhi, the father of the nation who strove for a normal relationship with his son. And Anil bags special jury award for the film.

Shefali Shah has got the best supporting actress award for her performance in “The Last Lear”. Bhavna Talwar’s directorial debut “Dharm” that explored religious undercurrents has won the Nargis Dutt Award for best film on national integration.

Sharad Goekar is best child actor for his role in the Marathi film “Tingya”.

The Indira Gandhi Award for best first film of a director goes to Shanker Raman for “Frozen”, which also wins the best cinematography award.

Sushil Rajpal’s “Antardwandwa” is best film on social issues; “Foto”, produced by Children’s Film Society of India and directed by Virendra Saini, bags best children’s film award.

The Bengal film industry’s presence is minimal with Ruma Sengupta getting best costume designer award for her lavish costumes in “Krishnakanter Will”.

The best music award goes to Ouseppachan for his score in the Malayalam “Ore Kadal”.

Pattnam Rasheed gets best make up artist award for his work in Malayalam film “Paradesi”.

The best feature films in various languages are “Ballygunge Court” (Bengali), “1971″ (Hindi), “Gulabi Talkies” (Kannada), “Ore Kadal” (Malayalam), “Nirop” (Marathi), “Periyar” (Tamil) and “The Last Lear” (English).

The jury considered 102 feature and 106 non feature films before it made its selection.

Even ‘Taare Zameen Par’ took a slow opening: Adhyayan Suman

‘Jashnn’ released over the Friday gone by and has surprisingly taken a slow start at the box office. Ironical as it may sound but this time around, director duo of Raksha Mistry and Hasnain Hyderabadwala has seen good reviews coming its way. Still, audiences are yet to warm up in a big way for the film that stars Adhyayan Suman, Anjana Sukhani, Shahana Goswami and Humayun Saeed.

The good news though is that select segment of audiences that has watched the film has good things to say about this emotional tearjerker that has number of poignant scenes that result in moist eyes. No wonder, the film's lead Adhyayan Suman is (rightly) hopeful that the film would pick up with strong word of mouth.

"Such films do take time to find audiences and I have myself seen good trend emerging with every passing day", says Adhyayan who is ecstatic though that his performance has not just been noticed but widely appreciated by majority of audiences and critics. "Yes, Friday was slow but no one came out complaining. I have been informed by trade that Saturday and Sunday have seen better results. Even if the film continues to hold up similarly on the weekdays, something that I am quite positive, I am sure we will have a good second weekend."

In the times when the first weekend does all the talking, what makes him so confident about the prospects of ‘Jashnn’? One can count the number of films that would have probably gone on to become popular amongst the audience in spite of not-so-favorable box office opening.

"And the film that sits at the top of such list is Taare Zameen Par", Adhyayan is quick to respond, "Didn't it see such a revival in fortunes after such a below average opening? It went on from strength to strength and went on to be a blockbuster! Yes, we have a big difference here though that ‘Taare Zameen’ Par had Aamir Khan while ‘Jashnn’ has Adhyayan Suman. But then it is sweeter to see an underdog succeed, isn't it?"

He is unhappy though that a section of media has come down heavily on him. "Frankly, I am not even sure whether these so called 'learned critics' have even bothered to watch the film", says Adhyayan in an amused tone, "Some of them seem to be making comments that are not even related to the film which makes me doubt if they have actually just done a desk job of putting together a review? That's because as far as I know, those who saw the film did appreciate the good work that has gone into making the film."

Is criticism rattling him? "Not at all", Adhyayan negates the theory, "If that was the case then I would have walked out of the film line after ‘Haal E Dil’ itself. Moreover, even in ‘Raaz - The Mystery Continues’, some said I was good and some said I was just average. I acknowledged the feedback and worked further on my performance."

"I am fine even if someone says I am bad in ‘Jashnn’. It's fine as long as someone can point out a scene and say that you were unconvincing at such and such scene. I will thank that person and work on myself. But if you make generic statements like Adhyayan was disappointing or he doesn't know the basics of acting or he was not right for a complex role like this, then hello, I can't take that. Give me feedback but make that objective enough", fumes Adhyayan.

Well, Adhyayan is surely fighting against the odds. But then fact is that a large section of media as well as audiences have given a Thumbs Up to his matured performance in ‘Jashnn’. Delivering much more than what he could have probably promised with ‘Jashnn’, it's just a matter of time before he is taken seriously as an actor.