Rajinikanth was conferred the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest honor in the field of cinema, at the 67th National Film Awards, held on Monday.
The in-person awards ceremony was held at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi. Rajinikanth, in his acceptance speech, dedicated the achievement to late filmmaker K Balachander, whom he referred to as his guru. The 70-year-old actor made his acting debut in 1975 with Balachander’s Apoora Raagangal. Rajinikanth also thanked his elder brother Sathyanarayana Rao Gaekwad, and his friend Raj Bahadhur in his speech.
The actor has also been bestowed with the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan awards in the past. He has headlined numerous successful films including Baashha (1995), Sivaji (2007), Enthiran (2010), and its sequel 2.0 (2018).
While Kangana Ranaut bagged the Best Actress Award for Manikarnika and Panga, actors Dhanush and Manoj Bajpayee shared the Best Actor Award for their performances in Asuran and Bhosle respectively.
While Chhichhore won the best Hindi language film, Marakkar Arabikkadalinte Simhan, the Malayalam film starring Mohanlal, won the best feature film award.
The National Film Awards was initially supposed to be held in 2020, but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The awards were announced in March. At the awards ceremony on Monday, the titles were presented by M. Venkaiah Naidu, the Vice President of India.
Srijit Mukherjee’s Bengali film Gumnaami bagged two awards. The film was declared the Best Bengali Film and shared the best screenplay award with Kaushik Ganguly’s Jyeshthoputro and Vivek Ranjan Agnihotri’s The Tashkent Files.
Nani’s Jersey took home the best editing award. Mahesh Babu-starrer Telugu film Maharshi won the Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment, as well for Best Choreography.
The awards are given out by the Directorate of Film Festivals, an organisation under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
