The 65th National Film Awards ceremony was held in the capital on Thursday with over 55 awardees giving the ceremony a skip in the wake of the announcement that President Ram Nath Kovind will only felicitate a small number of winners.
“Picture abhi baaki hai” – the best is ahead of us," said president while addressing the gathering as he talked about Indian cinema.
He remembered veteran actors Vinod Khanna and Sridevi who breathed their last in the year 2017. "Sridevi is this year’s winner of the Best Female Actor Award. And Vinod Khanna has been named for the Dadasaheb Phalke Award for his lifetime contribution. We miss them today, and we will miss them forever."
"When Vinod Khanna and Sridevi passed away, for millions of film lovers the loss seemed personal. Their fans and followers could be found all over the country, in every state and region. This is the beauty of cinema. Our film industry unites us as few others do," he added.
The President handed over the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, Nargis Dutt Award for Feature Films on National Integration, Best Book on Cinema, Best Direction (non-feature film), Best Jasari Film, Best Male Playback Singer, Best Music Direction (songs and background music), Best Actress, Best Actor, Best Direction (feature film), Best Feature Film and Best Editing while others were presented by Smriti Irani and Raghavendra Rathore.
Earlier in the day, the filmmakers and artistes from across the country had written a letter addressed to the Directorate of Film Festival, President's office, and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting to express that they feel "dejected rather than honoured" for their work. Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani is slated to give away the remainder of the 137 awards.It was on Wednesday that the awardees were informed that a large segment of the awards will not be presented by the President. They discussed the matter with Irani the same evening and were promised a reply.
"In the circumstance of not receiving a response for our grievance, we are left with no option but to be absent for the ceremony. We do not intend to boycott the award, but are not attending the ceremony to convey our discontent and are awaiting a more just solution. It feels like a breach of trust when an institution/ceremony that abides by extreme protocol, fails to inform of such a vital aspect of the ceremony with prior notice. It seems unfortunate that 65 years of tradition are being overturned in a jiffy," read the letter.
"...We are disheartened to know that we will be deprived of the honour of this appreciation of a once-in-a-lifetime moment of pride and glory that the National Film Awards had promised us," the letter added.
While several awardees refrained from attending the ceremony, the likes of Rima Das, Jayaraj, Riddhi Sen, AR Rahman, KJ Yesudas, Nagraj Manjule, Pankaj Tripathi, Divya Dutta, Nikhil S Praveen, Tenzing Kunchok and Sanjiv Monga were present at the ceremony to receive the awards. Boney Kapoor was accompanied by his daughters Khushi Kapoor and Janhvi Kapoor to receive the Best Actress posthumous honour and Akshaye Khanna, Kavita Khanna were present to collect the prestigious Dada Saheb Phalke Award on behalf of late Vinod Khanna. According to a source, over 50 awardees reportedly boycotted the awards.
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