It’s been almost a month-and-half since the 65th National Awards ceremony took place in Delhi. Following the announcement that President Ram Nath Kovind will give away awards to only select winners, over 60 awardees abstained from the event held on May 3 as a mark of protest. These awardees, however, are yet to receive their medals and citations from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry and there has been communication on the same from the ministry.
Appu Prabhakar, who won the National Award for the Best Cinematography (non-feature) for Eye Test, tried contacting the officials of the ministry via email but hasn’t received any response yet.
Filmmaker Praveen Morchhale whose film Walking with the Wind bagged the Best Film (Ladakhi), Best Sound Design and Best Re-recording awards, told Ahmedabad Mirror, “While I have not officially enquired into the matter, I’m in touch with the other awardees who did not attend the ceremony. A few among them did make some calls to the clerical staff and they were unofficially told that the ministry has yet to arrive at a decision on whether the medal and citation should be couriered to us, we should collect it from the regional offices or have a representative pick it up from Delhi. There have been no calls or emails, no official communication of any kind since May 3.”
The winners of the 65th National Film Awards were declared on April 13 by the jury headed by director Shekhar Kapur and a panel comprising screenwriter Imtiaz Hussain, lyricist Mehboob, South Indian actress Gautami Tadimalla, Kannada director P Sheshadri, Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury, Ranjit Das, Rajesh Mapuskar, Tripurari Sharma and Rumi Jaffrey.
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In an earlier interview with Silverscreen, Oscar and a National Award winner Resul Pookutty expressed his disappointment over the National Awards fracas and said though one cannot question the President of India, this is the first time in the history of National Film Awards that the Rashtrapati Bhavan refused to give time.
“It was very selectively done. Even though AR Rahman was in the technical category, he was picked. Are the rest lesser than those who have been selected? When you sit inside Vigyan Bhavan, everybody is equal. That’s what was discriminated this time. The people who got left out were the marginal workforce,” he had said.